Landfill – Trash troubles in Rhode Island

Highlights from The Providence Journal, Sunday April 20, 2008

“Troubles by the Curb”

I learned many things when I read the article called “Troubles by the Curb” in the April 20th Providence Sunday Journal.

I learned that:

·   The Landfill in Johnston is almost full -  At this rate, the landfill will reach capacity in two years. 

·   Rhode Islanders are not very good about recycling when compared to the rest of the nation.

·   State Government, Schools, and businesses are even worse when it comes to recycling. 

 

 

 Here are some of the highlights from this article:

Every year 1.2 million tons are added to the gigantic trash heap. RI Resource Recovery is seeking a $70 million expansion which would consume 100 more acres and extend the life of the landfill until 2020.  Has our Governor taken this into consideration as he cuts many state programs? 



In 2007, over 100,000 tons were recycled.  The equivalent to one month’s total dumping.  If RI matched the national recycling average of 32%, it would divert about 3 month’s worth of waste.



What are people thinking when they say “Recycling doesn’t Matter”?



“Only about 4% of commercial waste is recycled.  Existing commercial recycling laws are hard to enforce because DEM can’t assign enough people to the task.”



Loads arriving at the dump are sent to different parts of the landfill depending on the contents.

 

·   Green and Blue bin goods are sent to the Materials Recycling Facility to be sorted.  Workers frantically and monotonously separate the nonrecyclables – clear plastic takeout trays, yogurt containers, motor oil jugs – from the recyclables as the objects move on the swift-moving conveyer belts.

·   Dirty commercial loads, such as restaurant waste, can’t be sorted but many other loads contain significant amounts of accessible recyclable materials.

·   Those are dumped on the concrete floor of the tip facility where workers in soiled orange jumpsuits and small cranes root through truck after truck of business waste.  The purpose is to pull out recyclable goods and save them from taking up space in the landfill.

·   Only about 1 percent of recyclable goods from the commercial waste stream are recycled.  This includes rubbish from schools, government offices, and apartment buildings and accounts for 60 percent of the annual trash produced in the state.

·   In another area workers sort through mounds of paper products and pull out the occasional piece of cardboard that ends up in the load.

·   Over the last 15 years, recycling habits and poor enforcement of commercial recycling laws have not improved.

·   Items that are biodegradable can take decades to decompose buried in the landfill without air, water and sunlight.