a guide to recycling and greening in Washington, DC!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Airport Recycling Competition
Let's just put it simply. In the DC area, the far-and-away leader in recycling is BWI Airport. BWI recycling went from less than 5% of waste in 2004 to 28% in 2006, which is extraordinary since only one or two US airports have over 25% and the percentage of total waste that is recycled in the United States is 32.5%. The BWI recycling program saves approximately $15,000 per year. According to GreenMiles in fall 2007, "Until recently, National didn't have any recycling at all." More info soon.
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I have been running the MRF at FLL for over 20 years. The airport does not market the idea since the airport did not help to establish it. The airlines worked with us to get the MRF put and the Aviation Department uses our facility but makes us charge the airlines for the Aviation Departments trash. The airline managers agree to pay for it since they know in the end the airlines will have to pay for the Aviation Departments trash either way. They feel it is better to use ARS for it than to give control over it to the Aviation Department who may charge more than it costs due to management fees and such.
ReplyDeleteHere is the really bad part. After every airport in the country wasted their money on the source separation bins that all the material is comingled in and contaminated, FLL decided they should have then as well. So the Aviation Department at FLL knowing they have a MRF at the airport and were not paying a dime to have their garbage recycled spent a lot of money for bins they did not need, did I mention they spent this money while cutting teachers’ salaries and laying off County Employees? Really bad ideas.
I know most everyone believes putting recycle bins in the terminals works, but I have (as I mentioned above) over 20 years doing this work and I have seen the end product produced by sort bins. It is contaminated and most of it go’s straight to the landdfill. So all the efforts being made are for not much good unfortunately. If you count it being recycled once placed in the bins you are not getting the clear picture. There is a residue after the material is resorted at a MRF, so why not have the MRF on site and have market ready mill grade products being hauled instead of comingled contaminated material that needs to resorted if it doesn’t go straight to the landfill?
The solution is so easy and reduces the trucks on the road hauling very light material. I can give clear details of the right way to do this. The question is will anyone listen? The hauling companies are loving the bins in the terminals, that way of making an effort gives them more hauls and reduces the weight in those huge trucks so they can make more money for less effort. By the way the additional trucks burning more fuel reverses the good that is trying to be done.
Last point on this long post, we create new green jobs while recycling a larger percentage of waste than any other airport. These jobs a sustainable, in fact at FLL it equals 15 jobs that were being hauled and dumped in a landfill.
I am here for you if you have any questions. Feel free to put my office email in this post if you’d like recycle@airportrecycling.com