Edition: U.S. / Global

All About/Making Recycling Pay; In Solid Waste, It's the Breakdown That Counts

Published: March 31, 1991

The first thing everyone needs to know about recycling, said Charles F. Oyler, is the difference between trash and recyclable materials. Mr. Oyler is the recyling manager at the big materials recovery center in suburban Philadelphia. The center is operated by Browning-Ferris Inc.

A material recovery facility is a key element in the recycling chain. Materials that have been discarded are brought in to be separated, decontaminated and compressed into bales for shipment to mills that can make them into new products.

The factory processes about 125 tons a day of paper and cardboard, steel and aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles. All have been separated from outgoing solid waste to preserve their value. "There is no practical way to process completely mixed materials," Mr. Oyler said. "Once something is mixed with trash, it becomes trash."

Homeowners are asked to place their newspapers and glass, aluminum, steel and plastic in a container separate from other trash. Similarly, offices participating in the state-mandated recycling program are asked to collect high-grade papers and other recyclables away from other wastes. On collection day, the trash goes to a landfill; the recyclables go to Browning-Ferris.

According to William D. Ruckelshaus, the chairman of Browning-Ferris, one of the largest trash haulers in the country, solid-waste recycling is now at a crucial point in terms of its long-term viability. The public enthusiastically supports the concept at the moment, and that support is reflected in laws intended to prod industries to use more recycled materials.

That increase in demand is prompting an increase in collections and the development of processing plants like the one in King of Prussia. "If the infrastructure gets put into place, with collection systems, processing centers and end-user markets, then it will not matter if the current 'feel good' attitude subsides," Mr. Ruckelshaus said. "Economics will take over and the system will be self-sustaining."

The Metal Sideshow Efficient Aluminum, Tin-Tainted Steel

One self-sustaining part of the recycling business is aluminum. Since remelting aluminum takes only 5 percent of the electric power to extract metal from bauxite ore, aluminum companies have been recycling for more than 20 years.

Aluminum is the most valuable material in the solid waste stream. A ton of crushed, baled cans commands $1,000 to $1,100 from mills. In contrast, similar loads of old cardboard boxes are worth $25 to $90, according to figures compiled by Recycling Times, a publication of the National Solid Waste Management Association. Glass, separated by color, is valued at from $40 to $60 a ton.

According to the Aluminum Association, a trade group, 54.9 billion aluminum cans totalling 9.65 million tons were recycled in this country last year. That represented a recycling rate of 63.6 percent, the group said, up from 60.8 percent in 1989.

Steel has been recycled for generations. Indeed, the entire steel mini-mill industry is based on scrap, largely recovered from old cars and appliances.

But steel cans used to package food products have a thin coating of tin on the inside to prevent the formation of rust, and the tin was viewed as a contaminant because it caused blemishes on the surface of sheet steel. The drive to reduce solid waste in landfills has increased steel-can recycling.

The amount of tin on cans has declined from about 20 pounds per ton of steel 20 years ago to 4 1/2 to 5 pounds today, said William Heenan of the Steel Can Recycling Institute, another trade group. As a result, it can be added directly to steel furnaces in limited amounts without causing problems. He said steel-can recycling has risen from 5 billion cans in 1988 to an estimated 9 billion last year. It is now priced at $40 to $70 a ton, depending on location.

The Main Attraction Paper's Many Manifestations

All of these materials are sideshows, though, to paper and paperboard products. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, paper-based products, which include cardboard boxes, newspapers, computer printouts and tissue products, constitute the largest single element of solid waste -- about 40 percent.

Clean paper products can be recycled, within limits. Cardboard boxes can become new boxes, while some mixed grades of paper, including brown shopping bags, can be reformed as the fluted middle layer inside cardboard. Old newspapers can be made into new newsprint and the paperboard used for boxes of dry cereal.

One of the problems with the early recycling programs of the late 1980's was a glut of old newspapers that depressed the price to the point where communities had to pay to have them hauled away. To an extent, the glut continues; old newspapers, magazines and brown bags can cost $25 a ton to dispose of on the East Coast.

But those economics can be changed by adding value. "We upgraded our news by pulling out the bags and the slick magazines," Mr. Oyler said. "We never had to pay to move it."

Nevertheless, Browning-Ferris officials say that, with the exception of aluminum, the prices now being paid for recycled materials would not pay the costs of collection and processing. But when the savings of $70 a ton in landfilling fees that do not have to be paid are added to the equation, it becomes a viable business. Mr. Ruckelshaus observed that recycling may not make economic sense in states like Texas, where disposal fees are as low as $4 a ton.

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