From: A Smorgasbord of Recycling Equipment Choices
Is Cross-Contamination a Problem?
Some communities dedicate separate fleets of vehicles specifically to recycling; others use the same vehicles for everything, but dedicate different days of the week to collecting garbage and recyclables. In the latter instance, no one seems bothered by the possibility of refuse residue contaminating the recyclables.
“The trucks clean out well,” says Tracy Timmerman, vice president and general manager of the refuse division of McNeilus Companies Inc. “It’s a matter of washing down the body and cleaning out the tracks.”
“No special cleaning is needed,” says Mike Born, solid waste administrative analyst in Phoenix, AZ. “The floor and sides of the trucks are smooth. When you tip them up at a 30-degree angle, everything just slides right out.”
Of more concern may be cross-contamination between categories of recyclables—glass and paper, for instance. Ken Goedken, general manager of Kann Manufacturing Corp., cites “the reduced value of the [commingled] recyclable commodities due to contamination of collecting everything together.”
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Goedken says other negative aspects of commingling include “the up-front capital requirements to purchase the automated equipment and upgrade the MRF to handle and sort the full range of commodities delivered by the single-stream collection.”
On the positive side, he says, “you normally get much greater customer participation, resulting in higher diversion rates while improving route times, and a reduction in landfill tipping charges.”
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July-August 2005
From: A Smorgasbord of Recycling Equipment Choices
Is Cross-Contamination a Problem?
Some communities dedicate separate fleets of vehicles specifically to recycling; others use the same vehicles for everything, but dedicate different days of the week to collecting garbage and recyclables. In the latter instance, no one seems bothered by the possibility of refuse residue contaminating the recyclables.“The trucks clean out well,” says Tracy Timmerman, vice president and general manager of the refuse division of McNeilus Companies Inc. “It’s a matter of washing down the body and cleaning out the tracks.”
“No special cleaning is needed,” says Mike Born, solid waste administrative analyst in Phoenix, AZ. “The floor and sides of the trucks are smooth. When you tip them up at a 30-degree angle, everything just slides right out.”
Of more concern may be cross-contamination between categories of recyclables—glass and paper, for instance. Ken Goedken, general manager of Kann Manufacturing Corp., cites “the reduced value of the [commingled] recyclable commodities due to contamination of collecting everything together.”
Goedken says other negative aspects of commingling include “the up-front capital requirements to purchase the automated equipment and upgrade the MRF to handle and sort the full range of commodities delivered by the single-stream collection.”
On the positive side, he says, “you normally get much greater customer participation, resulting in higher diversion rates while improving route times, and a reduction in landfill tipping charges.”
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