My First Trip to a Materials Recovery Facility, Wow! (PHOTOS)

Last June, I took a trip to Action Carting's 30,000 square foot brand new Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) located in the Bronx. It was an unseasonably muggy day and as I hiked the seemingly endless trek from the train to the address scribbled on a post it stuck to the back of my blackberry, I thought, why did I agree to this. I had no idea what I was about to witness:The Action MRF has the capability to sort five different materials at one time: paper, cardboard, aluminum, plastic, and glass. Currently the facility handles 200-300 tons daily adding up to approximately 5,000 to 6,000 tons monthly. The sorting line has eight chutes using both automated and manual sorting. The manual sorting was pretty incredible, the belt moves at a speed of approximately thirty feet per minute- it has pause and resume buttons to ensure the capture of majority of the recyclable material and you'd be amazed how much non-recyclable material people put in the recycled bin.

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I was impressed with Action’s commitment to hiring local employees with the help of the New York City Economic Development Corporation and in cooperation with the Manhattan Courts.

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I was impressed with Action’s commitment to hiring local employees with the help of the New York City Economic Development Corporation and in cooperation with the Manhattan Courts.

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Comments

[flashblitzen]

10:42 AM on 06/18/2010

Attention corporations. Whatever you do, try not to make packaging that bio-degrades. In fact make it more difficult to dispose of because there is nothing I enjoy more than additional steps taken to help you save a couple of pennies by not doing the right thing. Please don't research shipping practices like foam peanuts because I love dealing with that to. Battery makers? Love it . Keep up the good work by not trying to deal with a program that receives back any used products. That energizer bunny keeps going and going long after we're dead from landfill toxins leeching into our ground water.

[realgreengirl]

08:35 AM on 06/18/2010

that's why Reduce and Reuse come before recycle. we obviously don't do a good enough job with the reduce and reuse.

[yamaniyama]

09:06 PM on 06/18/2010

Exactly! I create very little trash or recycled material: reusable water bottle filled with filtered water, canvas shopping bags, reusable cloths instead of paper towels, tupperware/glass containers instead of foil, sandwich bags, etc., buy food in bulk, make my own almond milk, compost kitchen scraps. Plus I use all natural, non-toxic cleaners, etc. Pretty simple folks; just a bit of effort to change old habits.

[Collielady]

12:14 PM on 06/19/2010

You are so right. I learned to make my own cleaning products and was surprised to learn that they work better than the commercial products AND they don't burn my lungs.

I've never used paper towels for cleaning because they don't do the job. There is nothing like a good, natural fiber rag. Makes the job so much easier and easy to collect a load and wash them. Easier than buying paper towels and dragging them home. Nothing cleans windows better than old, 100% cotton sheeting. Nothing cleans everything better than old, 100% cotton terrycloth.

I was raised in the day where we washed and re-used plastic bags, and I still do to this day. It's not hard to do any of these things, we just need to re-think old habits, as you say.

[curtisraymond]

04:43 AM on 06/18/2010

I remember back in the seventies there was a project called resource recovery. Alledgedly it was supposed to create thousands of jobs by sorting trash and recycling materials (aluminium, plastic, ect). The one I read about back then was going to be built on an exsisting landfill, but the residents didn't want this seemingly clean facility in their backyard. It seems like a really good idea now because nobody has a job. Does anybody know what happened to this idea?

[apricotea]

01:12 AM on 06/18/2010

In the recycling world, MRF actually stands for Materials Recovery Facility, not Materials Recycling Facility. Great that you covered this, though.

[rougebaisers]

10:13 PM on 06/17/2010

I look at this image and wonder when, if ever, we will have Back to the Future vehicles that run on garbage.

[Reginald Whibbey]

03:31 PM on 06/17/2010

Glad you had a nice trip seeing what industry can produce. MRF's are good now but wait till the warehouse is filled with robots. That will be the thing so see. We will go from 200 to 300 tons per week to many thousands per day.

[limine]

04:45 PM on 06/17/2010

but i love the guys that work at eco-cycle here in colorado. they are my heroes.

[ctblue]

12:22 PM on 06/17/2010

What happens to the stuff once it goes overseas? Why is it shipped overseas anyway?

[piggybackmom]

01:14 PM on 06/17/2010

Exactly! Could be used here. JOBS!

[Reginald Whibbey]

03:31 PM on 06/17/2010

the price is better overseas. Recycling is a business and it is about the money.

[ehorth]

05:42 PM on 06/17/2010

So if we are going to have MRF facilities filled with robots, why shouldn't we also have production facilities here to make new goods? As Miaiuppa says below, we are wasting energy through overseas shipping as well as overseas production. That is money also.

[Jeffrey Vakassian]

12:44 PM on 06/18/2010

Exactly!! We use product made in foreign countries here in the USA - products with a fairly large carbon footprint. After use, we dispose of the waste, by way of a system to recycle the containers, etc. The recycled by-product gets sorted, processed and shipped back to the foreign country of choice to process the waste back into "post-consumer" recycled paper/plastic/etc. Then the products are shipped either near or far to be manufactured into a new product, or more likely packaging like the cheap low-quality cardboard that comes from China. Then the products are once again put into shipping containers and transported back to the USA overseas.
So in the end, the recycling of paper, plastic, etc is merely doubling - or in some cases tripling - the carbon footprint. Nice environmental message. It's all about profits for private industry.
Waste management and garbage disposal should be regulated by a government agency (can of worms, I know) - but we all really need to reduce and reuse - not rely on our big blue bin to take it all away. Remember, you feeling good about recycling is merely another blind faith ticket for the big reprocessing business. It costs us all a fee to have curbside garbage pick up. The recycling can is free. The cost there is our environment - ironically.

[LHoney]

11:38 AM on 06/17/2010

I'm so happy to see that the "streamline" recycling is actually done properly. When our town began this program, I was afraid that all the cans/'bottles/paper, etc was just being crushed and dumped into the ocean, although I would still like to covertly follow some of those "overseas" shipments...

[mlaiuppa]

11:33 AM on 06/17/2010

Overseas? Then energy is wasted transporting the material overseas. That sorta defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Why is this material not recycled through the entire process domestically?

[Collielady]

12:16 PM on 06/19/2010

Because we don't make things here anymore. And, yes, shipping does kind of defeat the purpose. That makes me angry.

[SmartladyDem]

06:53 PM on 06/20/2010

Me too, I recycle with the best of intentions, and this is really upsetting.

[HalfBakedSushi]

11:05 AM on 06/17/2010

Wonderful. I have often wondered about the actual process of sorting recycling. Credit goes to the company for hiring locally. However, the one part that slightly disappointed me was that some material is shipped internationally for recycling. Certainly, I'm glad that it's getting recycled, but it would be wonderful if the material stayed in the US, was recycled and remanufactured in the US (thus providing desperately needed jobs), and then sold or reused in the US.

I'm also struck by how little our society values the services provided by our sanitation workers. Bless them.

[kcnewhaven]

01:56 PM on 06/17/2010

I agree avery year I tip my "Garbage Guys" & and my "Recycling Guys" with thank you notes (including my name & address for their supervisors to read) and a case of beer for each team. I am greatfull for the hard (smelly) jobs they do, and they are greatfiul for the beer.

[I3addog]

09:20 PM on 06/17/2010

Fanned for being so kind.