ALL AMERICAN WASTE HELPS CLEAN UP STREETS IN BRIDGEPORT
April 23, 2018
The Stratford Historic District organized a cleanup event which our very own John Ortiz participated in and gave out All American Waste sweatshirts to volunteers on April 21, 2018, cleaning up streets in Bridgeport, CT. Along with 11 students participating from Sacred Heart University and other volunteers, we were able to fill 25 bags of trash and help make the neighborhood cleaner. Thank you to the Stratford Historic District for organizing the event, John Ortiz and to all the volunteers who made it a great success!
The Glass Recycling Coalition (GRC) announced Murphy Road Recycling as a recipient of a gold-level certification for its All American material recovery facility (MRF) in Berlin, Connecticut. The approximately $40 million single-stream MRF started operations in 2022 and features a state-of-the-art processing system that includes optical sorters, artificial intelligence, and robotics supplied by Van Dyk Recycling Solutions. The All American MRF also uses glass cleaning equipment including a glass breaker, vibrating table screen, secondary fines screen, and vacuum system. The MRF sends its clean glass to processors that convert the material into cullet used for manufacturing glass containers, fine powders that are used in fiberglass insulation, and ground glass used as pozzolan (a cement binder). Read the full article on wasteadvantagemag.com.
Happy Holidays to all and a very fun filled New Year. How to make recycling simple and easy to understand for (circular economy reuse) holiday wrapping, packaging, and entertainment waste. All paper can be recycled EXCEPT if it has glitter, or imprinted with shiny metallic like materials, if it reflects light, do not recycle. Plastics with a neck and certainly nothing that is made up of multi-layers (laminates). All the ribbon, bows, plastic film, foam packaging go into the trash bin. Imagine standing over a picking line and the objective is to sort the most reusable and best quality materials. There are end markets for quality cardboard (OCC), mixed wastepaper (everything paper other than OCC, except the shiny metallic wrapping paper), Plastics #1, #2 and #5 (water bottles, detergent bottles, and yogurt cups) and all metal cans (food and beverage) should be recycled. Put items in the recycling cart separated and loose not in a bag or box and all items should be clean and dry. Recycle Paper gift wrap and envelopes that are plain (multi-color and images ok) and non-laminated: o No glitter. o No metal or shinny surfaces - if it can reflect light put it in the trash. o No laminates - multi-layered - most flexible food/candy packaging. Boxes: o Cardboard and paper boxes - ideally flattened out and remove the tape and Styrofoam peanuts and plastic air-pocket packing material. Bottles Plastic - look on the bottom of a bottle, if it shows the number: 1, 2 and 5 get recycled. o Rinsed and cleaned plastic with a neck - water, detergent, beverage (PET - #1 and HDPE - #2). o Plastic bottles without a neck - yogurt, cottage cheese not Keurig cups it has metal foil (polypropylene - PP - #5). Cans o Steel - food, soup, fruit, and vegetables. o Aluminum - beer, soda, specialty drinks. Bottles Glass: o Wine, champagne, beer. Trash Ribbons, bows, and decorations (Christmas lights, garland). Packing materials: o Bubble wrap, plastic films wrapped around a toy or gift, cellophane wrapping paper. o Foam - peanuts or Styrofoam. o Plastic air-filled packing materials. Plastic o Plastic bottles without a neck with non-plastic seals - Keurig cups. o All film - dry cleaner bags, grocery bags, cellophane wrapping paper, plastic wrapped presents. o Laminated plastics - food packaging any plastic that is clearly multi-layered is mixing too many chemistries to be recycled in a post-consumer system. o Forks, utensils, straws. Food waste - if you do not have home composting, it all goes into the trash.