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Here’s why Wellesley RDF ended plastic bag recycling

May 16, 2015 by Deborah Brown 1 Comment

On a recent trip to the Recycling and Disposal Facility, I was confronted with a sign letting me know that from now on, plastic bags had been downgraded from a recyclable to a trash item. The devil on my left shoulder said, “Good. That’s one less thing to sort and another corner of the garage reclaimed,” while the angel on my right shoulder fretted about the environment.

Then there’s RDF Superintendent Gordon Martin, a down-to-earth type. At the dump, what he says goes, and Martin largely ignores selfish attitudes and altruistic ideals when it comes to disposal matters and simply concerns himself with practicalities. The fact is, he says, all those flimsy plastic bags just weren’t pulling their weight.

The truth of the matter is that for the last three years, the dump has been collecting and baling the bags but has ended up throwing them away because there has been no market for them. That’s right, three long years of sorting, baling, storing, and ultimately trashing. So why put residents through it all? Martin points out that with all recyclables, markets go up and down. If he isn’t happy with the current price of boxboard and chipboard, for example, he will have it baled and put in the storage area over by the RDF office until the price goes up and he can spring in and make a killing.

In the case of the plastic bags, however, what Martin finally ended up killing is the crop that yielded plenty of supply but no demand. As for keeping up with the charade of collecting them all, well, past performance suggested that there was reason to be optimistic about future results, but at some point even the most bullish investor has to know when to fold ’em. And sometimes, it takes a few years to know when to walk away. So try not to feel strung along by it all. We all know that it can take time to sever those relationships that once were so symbiotic but somehow ended up one-sided.

The bottom line for Martin was, and always has been, the big picture, and the big picture at the dump is moving the merchandise. The RDF turns back approximately $750k annually to the general fund from recycling sales, trash fees, and the yard waste area. Everything they do they do with this question in mind: Will it make money? When recyclables lie around, obviously they don’t make money.

We, the recyclers, may feel sort of empty inside, after all we’ve been through with plastic bags. As a community, we must now come together and process the harsh news: our plastics aren’t in that composite lumber we used to renovate our decks last spring. Indeed, the “plastic please” bag we asked for at Roche Bros. to bring home our rotisserie chicken last week is most definitely is not the melted-down and reincarnated half cousin of the plastic bag we asked for last year to tote home our arugula.

Now that I think of it, those plastic bags were kind of running amok around our dump. There they were, “decorating” the tree limbs like the tackiest Christmas garland you ever did see, tumble-weeding along the road, cluttering up the wetlands area, which couldn’t have been good for the turtles and other critters, right?

Such as the critters, attracted by the stink and the promise of meal, that the bales would attract while they languished, waiting to be sold to the highest bidder that never did materialize. Ew.

Plastics may have been the future back when Dustin Hoffman starred in The Graduate, but these days, it’s best if we put our unprofitable affair with them behind us.

Also of interest…

Unmistakable reference to Wellesley dump

Wellesley dump find of the week

Sustainable Wellesley is greener than thou

January 24, 2015 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

Sustainable Wellesley, a volunteer organization that is all about recycling, living without pesticides, and moving toward clean energy, has a good-looking updated website. The group, whose mission is to engage the residents, businesses, and the Town of Wellesley in the actions required for sustainability, encourages big and small changes on a road toward increasing energy efficiency and reducing waste and pollution.

We were poking around on their website, trying to pick up some tips on making our “historic” home perhaps a bit more airtight, or at least finding the gumption to dig deep within ourselves to maybe turn out the lights as we left the room, and we were not disappointed. There’s is information as small-scale as consolidating car trips, to as big-picture as installing solar panels on your home’s roof.

A major interest of the group is, of course, the town’s Recyling and Disposal Facility. To that end, the group invited Gordon Martin, Superintendent of the RDF, to serve as guest editor for an article about recycling newspapers. Thanks to the efforts of Martin and the entire crew toiling away down there at the Wellesley/Needham line, and the good sorting and hauling-to-the-dump habits of Wellesley residents, the Town’s general fund was made $608,577 richer in fiscal year 2014.

One way this was achieved was through paper recycling. Once you read about how your recycling efforts really do matter to the town, you’ll never be able to toss your recyclables into the trash compactor again. Not without guilt, anyway.

Check out the Superintendent’s breakdown of how it all happens:

Did You Know……… over 2,000 years ago, the Chinese discovered that a thin, wet layer of interlocking fibers becomes paper when it dries. The first papermaking materials consisted of fibers from rags, the bark of trees, plants and grasses such as hemp, bamboo, jute and straw.

Most paper and paper products manufactured today use fibers derived from wood, primarily from conifers such as spruce, fir, pine, and hemlock and some deciduous trees such as birch, oak and aspen.

When newspaper fibers are recycled for the first time, the individual fibers are long. Every time newspaper is recycled, the fibers break down and become shorter and shorter. The problem is that short fibers, even when they are interlocked with other short fibers, make the final product weak and unstable. The answer to this problem is to introduce long fibers into the mix.

Americans have been recycling paper for only three hundred years. Foreign paper makers have been recycling paper for two thousand years. This means that America’s recycled paper fibers are in great demand and foreign buyers are willing to pay a higher price for it. The RDF sells a significant amount of paper to worldwide markets because of the higher price paid to the Town.

It’s important to note, the RDF’s success starts with Wellesley residents. Your efforts make it possible for the RDF to sell good quality material at the highest global price. The estimated added revenue from the sale of exported sales is approximately $60,000 per year. Total sales revenue in FY 2014 was $380,544 and $608,577 was deposited into the Town’s General Fund.

Be sure to take a few moments and separate all your recyclables. Don’t throw them in the trash compactors. Remember, trees have to be cut down to make new paper products and for every ton of paper that is recycled, 17 trees will be saved. That equates to Wellesley residents saving over 60,000 trees last year.

For more information call Gordon Martin, Superintendent of the Recycling and Disposal Facility at 781-235-7600 ext 3340 or e-mail him at [email protected].

-Guest editor Gordon Martin

Also of interest:

Composting service seeks to worm its way into Wellesley

Watch documentary and talk trash in Wellesley

September 22, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

RDF recycling sign A family friendly get-together to watch a short documentary about Wellesley’s Recycling and Disposal Facility (RDF), talk about trash and eat pizza will be held on a Friday, Sept. 26 from 6:30 – 8:30 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Wellesley Hills, 309 Washington St.

The UU Learning Community and UU Green Sanctuary Ministry Team are jointly sponsoring this free event that is open to the public.

Former Wellesley College student Dawn Marie Barnett produced the film, which interviews key players and shows what becomes of Wellesley trash.

Enjoy pizza at 6:30, followed by the film at 7 PM. After the film, participants are invited to chat with Gordon Martin, RDF Superintendent, and take part in hands-on activities and a trash trivia contest.

Why Wellesley RDF is closed most Sundays

June 20, 2013 by Bob Brown 2 Comments

A Wellesley resident who moved into town a few years ago asked us recently why the Wellesley Recycling & Disposal Facility isn’t open most Sundays (“I can’t tell you the amount of head-scratching and consternation this single issue causes for all new residents. This is so hard for households with two working parents,”).

Our recall on this issue was fuzzy, so we asked Gordon Martin, RDF superintendent, for clarification on the matter:

In 1997, the RDF first opened on Sundays after the RDF Improvement Project was completed. The facility was open 7 days a week until July of 2005. The DPW reduced the number of days the RDF was open because of budget cuts.

Now, we are open only 6 Sundays a year for the busy Fall season. There have been no recent talks that I know of about re-opening on Sundays, but I’m sure some would love it. There’s no doubt in my mind that if we were open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, residents would come in all throughout the day and night.

The last time I looked at the numbers, the cost of opening on Sundays was about $50,000 a year. It may actually be a little higher now because of inflation.

Martin added that the Department of Public Works supported Sunday hours, but that residents in 2006 voted against an override to fund this (funding for school expenses was approved, but not for branch libraries or RDF Sunday hours).

If you’re wondering if closing the RDF on a weekday and opening it on Sundays has ever been considered, the answer is Yes. But shipping recyclables during the week is big business for the town, which is conveniently located near highways and has favorable trucking operation rules, and it was determined that regularly closing on a weekday would be bad for business.

The book on Wellesley RDF permits

November 15, 2012 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

In light of the story of the Marlborough man who found the money-filled, hollowed-out book at the Wellesley Recycling & Disposal Facility, some raised the obvious question: “Hey, wait a minute, what was a Marlborough guy doing at the RDF in the first place?”

(Others have chimed in to chide those who would deprive this man of his once-in-a-lifetime find, even though he has attempted to find the rightful owner of the book.)

As for RDF permitting rules, Gordon Martin, superintendent for the RDF, explains:

“We issue two types of permits. Residents get the permit sticker for their windshield, the second type of permit is an orange placard that the residents are required to place on their dashboards upon entering the RDF.

These placards are temporary and have an expiration date on them. The permit holder typically has full access to the facility; in some situations, we may decide to restrict access by writing on the placard what the restriction is. As you can imagine, once a person is given a permit, it’s very difficult to enforce the restriction.

In the case with the Marlborough man who found the cash in the hollowed out book, the resident asked for a full access permit and we granted his request.”

New needle disposal rule in Wellesley, state

June 28, 2012 by Bob Brown Leave a Comment

From the Wellesley Health Department:

According to a statement from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH), “A statewide ban on the disposal of needles, syringes and lancets (collectively known as “sharps”) will go into effect on July 1, 2012.” The law stipulates that disposal of sharps will no longer be allowed in regular household trash in Massachusetts. As of July 1^st, Wellesley residents will not be allowed to dispose of their sharps in the trash at the RDF, or in their household trash collected by a private trash hauler.

So, what should residents do with their sharps? Residents may bring their sharps to the Wellesley Police Department during Medication and Needle Take-Back Days, on a Saturday in April and September or October. Residents may also bring their sharps to the RDF in capped, sturdy, puncture and leak-proof containers (such as coffee cans, rigid plastic containers or approved sharps containers) once a year – during the Household Hazardous Products Collection Day, the first Sunday in May.

*Wellesley Health Department is working on a plan that would offer residents another option – one that would allow them to drop off sharps at an alternate location on a regular basis. This would be in addition to the Medication and Needle Take-Back Days in the Spring and Fall, as well as the Household Hazardous Collection Day each May.

The law was (according to the MDPH release) “designed principally to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS, a preventable and treatable disease.” In Wellesley, the law will be important for employees involved in sharps collection at the RDF, and private trash haulers, as it will significantly reduce the risk of needle-stick injuries and disease. It is especially timely, as RDF Superintendent Gordon Martin noted that “illegal disposal of sharps is a major concern, as they (sharps) have been found with more frequency in the plastic recycling areas.”

If you would like more information, please visit: http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/docs/dph/environmental/sanitation/faq-needle-disposal.pdf

BBC visits Wellesley’s bloody good dump

April 24, 2012 by Bob Brown 1 Comment

UPDATE (4/25/12). The RDF’s Gordon Martin says he’s been working for the past 6 months with a Wellesley graduate student who has been working on a documentary about the RDF that she hopes to have aired on the BBC Network.

The BBC Tuesday apparently visited the Wellesley Recycling & Disposal Facility as part of some sort of report from the Boston area today. I’m sure their report is quite brilliant and much more complete than this. You might be able to listen to it here, though we weren’t able to immediately pinpoint it.

Thanks to local Linda K, who first mentioned “the beeb is at the wellesley recycling center!!!!!!!! OMG!” via Twitter.

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