Tons of materials processed for resale
ADAMS TWP — Consumers may be unaware that they are buying that plastic pop bottle twice: Once when it holds soda and again when they replace their carpet.
The newspaper, cardboard, tin cans, metal cans, clear plastic bottles, milk jugs and glass that come from customers' curbsides end up at the huge recycling facility before being baled and shipped off to buyers of the materials, according to Ed Vogel, vice president of Vogel Disposal Services and overseer of the company's Hutchman Road recycling facility, TC Recycling.
He said some plastic containers and certain glass might not be recycled due to their composition, but he encourages customers to toss most kitchen and household plastic into the recycling bin or cart.
“If it's a container coming from the home, put it in the recycle bin,” Vogel said.
The busy recycling center has tractor-trailer loads of curbside recyclables backing up to within 20 feet or so of a conveyor belt. The items packed into the truck are then dumped on the floor via a special track on the floor of the trailer that “walks” the refuse out little by little.
A waiting high-lift shoves it onto a conveyor belt that carries the items up to the second floor to the skilled hands of employees who expertly separate the items by dropping paper, bottles, and aluminum cans into different chutes.
One thing that slows the workers down, Vogel said, is garbage bags. When workers must tear open a garbage bag full of recyclables, it bogs down the entire procedure.
“We want the (recyclables) to be loose,” Vogel said.
It is on this initial process that strange items, such as cookware, metal chair backs, and a host of other nonrecyclable items are pulled out and set aside.
The goal is to leave only cardboard on the conveyor belt, as bales of cardboard sell for the most money.
Once picked clean of paper, plastic, glass and trash by the line employees, the cardboard goes over a “disc screen” that shakes out any non-cardboard items and drops them down for their own processing.
The cardboard then falls off the end of the conveyor belt and flutters to the floor below, creating a story-high mountain of boxes, beer cases and other cardboard.
Once the cardboard comes within a few feet of the end of the conveyer belt, a high-lift pushes it off to the side.
Vogel explained that the evening crew then pushes the cardboard onto a large conveyer belt, where it heads off to a baler.
The pure cardboard is tied up into large bales that weigh from 1,500 to 1,600 pounds for sale to paper mills, which will make new cardboard.Some large bales contain newspaper, mail and cardboard, which are sold to mills that make lower-grade products like toilet paper.The paper mills also buy bales of newspaper to make new newspaper.The conveyor belt includes a machine that repels aluminum and drops it into a bin to be processed with aluminum.Vogel said the quality control employees who work on the conveyor belt ensure nothing like plastic or the wrong type of aluminum get into the bin, which could cause a buyer to reject a bale of material.“People throw anything into the recycle bin,” he said.Large bales of aluminum cans also are processed at the plant and sold to the company that will pay the highest amount. The same goes for huge bales of clear plastic, colored plastic and milk jug plastic.He said some plastic bottles are shipped to processors that make them into material used to make carpeting or the “down” filling in winter coats and vests.Vogel said 30 to 40 trucks a day containing curbside recyclables or loads from TC Recycling warehouses in Grove City, Beaver Falls and Youngstown, Ohio, come and go at the Hutchman Road plant.The recycling plant is slated for an upgrade this spring and summer, when the older machines bought several years ago will be replaced with the newer equipment from a bankrupt company in York, Pa., that TC Recycling bought in December.The disk screen that separates the cardboard from other materials is one of the first two such machines made by the manufacturer. The screen will be replaced by a more efficient version.Another machine will sort the items when they come in, instead of workers sorting the various materials. The workers will then monitor the process instead of actually touching the recyclables.Vogel said the industry standard is to produce one ton of product per man-hour, which is a goal he hopes to reach when the equipment is upgraded to a more automated operation.
“You want to have a steady feed on the belts, and not periods of 'black belt,'” Vogel explained.Giant bales of flattened milk jugs and laundry detergent jugs, respectively, can be stored outside until the most lucrative vendor is found, Vogel said.He said the new equipment will allow all of the bales from the plant to be higher quality, and therefore more lucrative.Vogel said some of the York equipment is on-site, and the rest should arrive before the end of March. It will be swapped out over the course of several months.Vogel looks forward to the newly acquired equipment being online so the entire plant can run more efficiently.He said Butler County requires every trash hauler to offer recycling. He said Vogel offers recycling pickup to customers every other week.While some customers still have the smaller rectangular bins, Vogel would like to see the garbage-tote type lidded containers used for recyclables because they can be picked up by an automated truck and not an employee.“It helps with workers comp,” he said.Vogel is on the state Solid Waste Advisory Committee and the Pennsylvania Waste Industry Association boards, both in Harrisburg.
