Does the trash in my dumpster get recycled?

Have you asked your landlord about getting recycling bins -- only to be told that everything in the "regular" garbage bin gets recycled? Some trash pickup companies too may also tell would-be recyclers not to fret about getting blue bins, assuring them that all the contents of the big building dumpster will get put through a careful recycling process.

Skeptical apartment-dwellers often have a hard time believing that the newspaper thrown in with the doggie doo will indeed get recycled, perhaps for good reason. So, when a reader living in Fullerton asked me how he could go about recycling in his 'hood, I decided to investigate further. Turns out, the City of Fullerton doesn't offer its residents blue bins, but does assure them that "a processing company (CVT Recycling) makes sure all recyclable materials are taken out before the trash is sent to the landfills."

Fullerton refers to this process as murfing, a.k.a. MRF-ing. However, MRF stands for Materials Recycling Facility, a very generic description. This means that MRF-ing can also refer to the process that pre-sorted (a.k.a. blue-binned) trash is put through. So more accurately, the process Fullerton uses is "dirty MRF-ing" -- sorting out the recyclables WITHOUT pre-sorting them from the other garbage. So:

How effective is dirty MRF-ing? I got some rough statistics from Alexa Kielty from the San Francisco Department of the Environment, who said "the recycling rate is somewhere in the range of 10-15% for dirty-MRFs, whereas the recovery rate for source-separated recycling is more like 40%." Alex Dmitriew, also from the SF Department of the Environment concurred, but pointed out dirty MRF-ing can achieve much higher recycling rates in "recyclables rich" trash loads -- such as those coming from office buildings. He also pointed out that dirty MRF-ing can be a good option for places where pre-sorted recycling programs are difficult to implement. After all, some recycling is better than no recycling.

I'm working on getting more specific comparative stats about MRF-ing. For example, I'd like to find out how the recovery rate for household trash compares between pre-sorted MRF-ing and dirty MRF-ing programs. I also have a call into the City of Fullerton to get stats on the city's recyclables recovery rate; hopefully Fullerton tracks this information. So, more on the fascinating world of MRF-ing soon!

But for now, if your landlord or waste hauler tells you  your trash is indeed getting recycled, don't assume they're lying. Your trash may indeed be sent to a dirty MRF-ing program.  If it is, some of your recyclables will be recovered, though generally not at as high a rate as in pre-sorted recycling programs.

Of course, I can't vouch for whether or not your specific waste hauler does indeed take your trash to get dirty MRF-ed, or whether your waste hauler's simply found that claiming to recycle is an easy way to get would-be-recyclers off his or her back. If you really want to get to the bottom of it, find out the name of your trash hauler, call them to find out what facility your trash gets taken to, and call that facility to find out if it does indeed have a dirty MRF-ing program.

Earlier: Recycle week!

Photos by concrete cornfields and waltarrrrr via Flickr

Comments

[Tim Buchheim]

I live in Temple City which also uses a dirty-MRF system (via Athens Services management) ... In my household we pre-sort some of our recyclables and trash, so hopefully that makes it easier for the MRF facility to sort and recover recyclable items. for example, food waste tends to go into a separate plastic bag (so it won't contaminate other things) and newspapers go into paper grocery sacks to keep them clean and separate.

I wish we had separate recyclables pick-up, though. It seems like it would be much more efficient, and probably more profitable for Athens. At least we have separate yard waste pick-up.

[Adam]

Thanks for the post - As a recent relo from Boston, I called our garbage service (Athens) to ask about recycling bins and was uber surprised (and skeptical) when she said that they do all the sorting at the facility. Although I still take what I can to the nearest recycling center on the weekend, cardboard boxes from the move and whatnot, I feel a little more comfortable if some of my recyclable items make it out with the kitty litter.