The dollars and sense in the yellow bin

It is important to take responsibility for sorting recyclables at home. Why? Because it saves money and makes good environmental sense. It is a lot cheaper to send materials to be recycled than it is to send them to landfill, but we can save even more.

The contents of the yellow bins are sent for sorting at a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF). Imagine a huge shed, filled with large machinery:

• A ‘trommel screen’ helps separate small pieces of glass.
• A ‘bounce conveyor’ helps separate paper from plastic containers.
• Magnets and ‘eddy current’ devices help separate ferrous and non-ferrous metals.
• Hand sorting and robots help separate plastics and other containers.

Following these processes, the MRF has collections of materials that are sold to manufacturers. For example, the paper is sold to manufacturers who make recycled paper products. Glass, metals and plastics are also sold. The revenue from these sales offsets the cost of the recycling processes – it saves us money.

To get the best possible price for materials, it’s important they are not contaminated, like having paper that is free of plastic. But the processes that help to separate materials are not perfect. For example, it’s very difficult to distinguish between paper and soft plastics. So, some soft plastic can make it through the process – it’s called contamination.

Materials that don’t belong in the yellow bin, like clothing and crockery, are also contamination. If these materials are put in a yellow bin, they need to be separated at the MRF and sent to landfill, which creates double handling and all costs money. Even worse, some contaminants can jam or damage the recycling devices, which creates downtime at the MRF and costs more money.

What’s the solution? The industry is improving the automated systems. But developing and implementing new technology can be costly, and the cost comes back to us. Another option would be more hand sorting at the MRF. But again, that cost would come back to us.

Why does the cost come back to us? Well, the council pays for the recycling services – costs which are covered by council rates. So, if you are paying council rates, or renting a house and paying rates indirectly, you are paying for the recycling process.

The responsible option is to make sure we all sort our recycling at home. If we reduce contamination, we all save money! It’s important to make sure that the only things that go in our yellow-lidded recycling bins are paper, cardboard, glass, metal and plastic containers. For more detail, visit www.whichbin.sa.gov.au or call WhichBin on 1300 137 118.

In Burnside, we have relatively low levels of contamination in our recycling bins. Most people are doing the right thing, which saves money at the MRF. There’s more good news, too. The materials are recycled, saving the demand for virgin materials, and in turn reducing carbon emissions. It’s really a win-win-win, that saves us dollars and makes great sense!