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Follow That Can!
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Cole Hardware’s Green Team takes a tour of NorCal’s Recycle Central
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Recently Cole Hardware’s Green Team took a fascinating tour of NorCal’s (the parent company for Sunset Scavenger and Golden Gate Disposal) Recycle Central, located at Pier 96 on San Francisco’s southern waterfront. The state- of-the-art facility was construc ted to separate mixed recyclables into different commodities to be sold to recycling markets, primarily overseas.
After a can, bottle or newspaper is tossed responsibly into a recycling cart, it probably isn’t given another thought. Where does it end up? Let us show you. We think you will be as awed as we were by this impressive operation!
Split-chamber trucks take recyclable materials to Pier 96. One side of the truck holds recycling; the other side holds garbage. The recyclables are unloaded and
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| The can begins its journey |
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| Mixed recycling conveyer belts |
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| Bales of recycled cans |
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| A masterpiece of recycled cans |
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the garbage is taken to a transfer station in San Francisco and then to a landfill. (More on the garbage side later.)
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Mixed recycling is loaded onto conveyer belts which transport the material to the top of a two story platform. On the platform, a process of mechanical and manual separation is used to sort the recyclables into individual commodities. Workers on the platform pull cardboard, paper, plastics and glass, then drop them into corresponding bins where the material is collected at ground level.
Glass is sorted by color and plastics by type. Paper is separated by grade: mixed, white, newspaper, cardboard, etc. Steel and aluminum are captured by a magnetic current.
Separated materials are compacted into bales and are ready for end markets. Recyclers purchase the commodities and transform them into other plastic, paper, glass and metal consumer products.
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| Garbage transfer site |
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Recycled cans are transformed into a beautiful masterpiece – they look as though they belong in the Museum of Modern Art! It takes 95% less energy to make an aluminum can from existing cans than to make it from virgin materials. Likewise, paper made from recycled paper does not require the use of trees as raw material.
Most recyclable materials, once separated, are sold to manufacturers in China and other Pacific Rim countries. While Sunset Scavenger has a tremendous system in place, it is always best to reduce our consumption, reuse existing materials and then, recycle.
Finally, we took an equally impressive tour of the garbage transfer site in the City. The garbage trucks dump their loads of household and business trash into a giant pit, where bulldozers compact and load it into larger trucks for transport to the landfill. What we found somewhat disheartening was the many recyclable and compostable materials that still end up in the trash. But this only reinforced how important it is for everyone to do their part to recycle properly and confirmed Cole Hardware’s commitment to reducing our waste as a business.
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- Hardware Hotline September, 2008
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