18. Waste Audit 2022

WASTE AUDIT 2022

COMINGLED

       On November 30^th, 2022, we performed a waste audit on our comingled recycling.  A waste audit is when you take a material stream and analyze it through sorting and measuring things like weights, volumes, anomalies, and any other categories that may be relevant.

WHY DID WE DO THAT?

        We wanted to see what our comingled recycling consisted of.  Recycling materials are commodities, and the quality of the product affects prices or even the ability of items to be recycled.  Figuring out what’s inside the containers we ship gives us data such as contamination rates, amounts of high and low value plastic, and what materials we need to focus on keeping out of the stream.  Also, we received help from the AmeriCorps through a grant, which made this project possible.

WHAT WERE WE LOOKING FOR?

        Ideally, we wanted as much data as possible.  As the project got closer, we learned that we would be getting less AmeriCorps members than anticipated so we had to adjust how many categories we could feasibly sort through.  We focused on Plastic, Tins, Bulky Rigid Plastic, Water Bottles, and Trash.  We also put aside any items that were not only considered contamination, but were dangerous, such as syringes.

HOW DID WE PERFORM THE AUDIT?

        We closed off the area around Comingled compactor #4 and built a corral out of snowplows and blocks.  Using our Roll-off truck, we dumped material out of a full and pre-weighed comingled container onto the ground.  This material was shoveled onto two sorting tables to be gone through by hand using seven people.  Trash, Tins, Plastic, and Water Bottles were sorted into 32-gallon trash barrels.  When the barrels were full, they were emptied into larger containers to be weighed at the end.  The recyclable Plastic was dumped straight into the nearby compactor and the Bulky Rigid Plastic thrown into the loader bucket and weighed at the end.  Afterwards, we re-weighed the container on the truck to determine how much total material we dumped and then weighed all the sorted material.  Because the recyclable Plastic went back into the compactor, that weight was determined by adding up the sorted material and subtracting from the total material analyzed.  Due to time, we only weighed several 32-gallon barrels of materials throughout the day to get an average weight per barrel.  We set aside the more notable items on a table.

WHAT DID WE FIND OUT?

Click the link to know: