Most of us spend a lot of time thinking about our stuff. We dream about the stuff we want. We work to earn money to buy stuff. We research the best stuff to get. We spend time shopping for stuff. We spend time and money to maintain our stuff. We then spend more money so we can store our stuff. We stress about how much stuff we have. Then we get rid of our stuff. Unfortunately we often haven’t thought a lot about what happens to our stuff when we are done with it.

The staff at the South Berwick Transfer Station spends a lot of time thinking of what happens to the steady stream of waste that the citizens of South Berwick create. On a warm spring day Gary Boucher, the supervisor of the transfer station gave up his lunch time to give me a tour of the transfer station and help me understand what happens to all the stuff we bring to the transfer station.

After getting the full tour I came away understanding three things I didn’t know about the transfer station. First, and you probably know this if you’ve spent any time at the transfer station, almost everyone who comes to the transfer station has an opinion or a question about how the transfer station is run, a suggestion about what should be done, or some color commentary about the state of the town. I have new appreciation for how friendly and patient the staff is.

Second, I realized what a logistical challenge it is to funnel the steady flow of people and waste into the transfer station to make it easy and safe for citizens to navigate and to get all the waste to the right place at the transfer station. The staff is not only dealing with the waste, they are constantly answering questions, explaining policies, teaching about what goes where, monitoring and enforcing rules, and keeping an eye on safety of cars, adults, and children.

The third thing I learned, and this was the most surprising to me, is that supervising what happens to South Berwick’s waste after it leaves the transfer station is a lot like being a commodities trader. What you and I see as waste, Gary Boucher sees as commodities, all of which can have an economic impact on the town. Some commodities, like the trash that goes into the hopper, cost the town money to haul away. Other commodities, like plastics, metal, and cardboard bring in revenue for the town. In order to add to the revenue the transfer station brings in, Gary Boucher is constantly watching the waste and recycling markets to adjust collection policies and rules to make the most of revenue opportunities. Secondly, the staff is continually trying to promote and strengthen recycling because when recyclable items go into the hopper, the town takes two economic hits: it loses the revenue it might have gotten for that recyclable and it has to pay to have it hauled away.

Mr Boucher described some of the ways the transfer station is trying to make the most of the market:

-The transfer station gets $1200 a ton for aluminum cans and they can ship out about two tons per month. They used to separate returnables but found that the cost of labor made it a loss—they can bring in more revenue mixing all the cans.

-The purchase of the plastic bailer opened up more markets for plastics since plastic recyclers will only take bailed product. Plastics brought in approximately $50,000 last year and Gary Boucher expects approximately $100,000 next year.

-Corrugated cardboard now brings in $124 a ton while a year ago it only brought in $40 a ton. The transfer station is trying to encourage more cardboard recycling to take advantage of its rising price. Mr. Boucher says they did research and found that clean pizza boxes are acceptable. Apparently South Berwick eats a lot of pizza, so diverting the pizza boxes to the recyclable cardboard adds to revenue the town gets.

-The skyrocketing demand for metals from the Asian market has driven up the revenues the town can get from anything metal. Gary Boucher says even things like umbrellas or folding lawn chairs with metal parts can go in the metal bin. Metal brings in $180 a ton. Even power cords cut off of any appliance that is being discarded can be sold for the copper value.

-Shingles and roofing are separated from construction debris because they cost less to haul away as a separated commodity than the cost for mixed construction waste.

Gary Boucher also answered some frequently asked questions:

What is your take on the pay per throw plan adopted by the Town Council?
Pay-per-throw is an economic incentive for residents to reduce waste. Charging residents a fee for each bag of trash generated gives them incentive to discard less waste. Typical results are a significant increase in waste reduction and recycling. Pay-per-throw provides a continuing motivation to residents to reduce their expenses for trash services and gives the price signal to residents to decide on the actions they should take to dispose of less trash and increase recycling.

What advantages does it have over the present system?
Under the present system, no matter how much or how little residents use the service, they incur no financial consequence and reap no financial benefit. Residents typically respond to (apparently) free services by overusing them. Overuse of services results in unnecessarily large amounts of garbage with excessive costs for which residents must them pay. Therefore, waste reduction means lower tipping fees to MERC and increased recycling means higher revenues to the town to help cover operational costs.

Are South Berwick residents complying with recycling now?
Residents are generally doing a good job recycling, and there’s always room for improvement. The greatest area needing attention is the “mixed paper” category. There is still a lot of mixed paper going into the hopper. Residents need to be further educated about what can and can’t be placed in the mixed paper bin. Getting residents to do more mixed paper recycling will further increase the town’s recycling efforts.

What do residents need to know about things they can recycle? Can’t recycle?
1) Proper separation of recyclables at each station is important. What good is going through the effort of recycling if items are not properly separated?
2) Don’t attempt to recycle glass and plastic containers with food residue. They’ll just be thrown away. Rinse out containers as best you can. Cleaning mayonnaise and peanut butter containers takes effort and energy to clean.
3) Most pizza boxes are recyclable corrugated. A little grease in the boxes is OK. However, many residents leave pieces of crust and pieces of pizza in them, along with the paper or cardboard liner inside the boxes. These should be removed before placing in the recycling area.

What was the rationale for the traffic pattern change at the station? How is it working?
Safety! Cars coming in the former entrance were entering the transfer station at 25+ mph right up to the hopper area. After posting a 5 mph sign, residents largely ignored it. There are a lot of kids at the transfer station that like to run around, especially on Saturday and Sunday. The new entrance forces residents to slow down around the disposal areas. It also helps keep the attendants that work each recycle station safer. Cars would come from every direction and attendants would always be on the lookout for weaving cars. Now cars are approaching from only one direction. This is especially important when attendants are operating equipment…vehicles are all flowing in one direction. I have had a lot of positive comments in regards to the new traffic pattern.

Why tags over stickers?
When stickers were issued, residents were asked to place them on the low part of their windshields. Many residents complied, while others didn’t, placing them wherever they wanted. Therefore you would find the stickers on every corner of the windshield (some up in the tinted area where an attendant can’t see them), on their side windows (where attendants couldn’t see them in the summer because windows were rolled down) and on the back window (with the hatchback window/door open while offloading waste). Attendants spent a lost of time asking residents “Where’s your sticker?” With tags, the permits are in the same place on every vehicle, every time.

Coming up next:
Part 2: The mystery of plastic recycling solved, mixed paper, fluorescent bulbs, and e-waste.
Part 3: Transfer Station policies and Gary Boucher’s tips and resources for reducing waste

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 12:02 pm and is filed under So. Berwick Government, Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.