visiting our local recycling facility

The Zero to Go team recently visited the Hudson Baylor facility in Newburgh to learn more about the local recycling process. We had an awesome time seeing the huge facility, and staffer Tim Flanagan did an excellent job in fielding our list of questions, which go a little something like this:

1. Are plastics washed before recycling?
2. Do dirty plastics get thrown away? Do dirty plastics really ruin a whole batch of recycling? Do non-accepted plastics (4, 6, 8)?
3. Why aren't #6's accepted? (Rockland County accepts 1-7: see http://www.rocklandrecycles.com/docs/WhatToRecycle6-07.pdf)
4. What does the proposed single single stream plant in Beacon mean for recycling?
5. What does it mean for #4 and #6?
6. Why are polystyrene #6 & plastic bags not accepted? Is it about energy? Toxins?

Before we launch into all the answers to the above questions, a bit of clarification is in order. When you leave your recycling out for Royal Carting (paper, cardboard & plastics 1,2,3, 5,7,9), they pick it up and bring it to their facility in Wappinger Falls. The materials belong to them now, and they as the hauler may sell it to any processing facility they wish. Many hundreds of thousands of tons are sold to Hudson Baylor, who in turn bales the material and sells to metal, glass and plastics recyclers. It's all about the best pricing, which fluctuates like any market. For example, aluminum goes for $2000/ton. Check out these giant blocks of aluminum, ready to be shipped:

In essence, everything they receive is sent away to a recycler, who will try to turn the biggest profit possible. For us (Zero to Go and other folks who support the elimination of styrofoam from local businesses), it means that #6 polystyrene is somehow handled by the plastics recyclers. We're working on finding out how, exactly. #6 is all around us! I was at Adam's Fairacre Farms yesterday eyeing the zucchini bread, but decided against it once I turned its plastic box over and saw that it was a #6. Another big one for me - paper coffee cups all use #6 lids. Why? Where is this coming from, and does it have an end of life cycle? I could keep on this topic, but I'll move on to something brighter!

Despite plastic bags tending to be rather unwieldy and hard to clump together, Hudson Baylor wrangles them into huge amorphous bales and ships them off. So - keep on recycling those #1,2 and 4 bags!