Town reps head to NJ for waste management review

The Town of Warwick recently asked a team assembled from both Sustainable Warwick and the Climate Smart Community Task Force Committee to visit the town’s primary waste management facility - Interstate Waste Services (IWS) - in North Arlington, N.J. The goal was to learn more about the challenges that are facing the industry and other municipalities in the region when it comes to handling materials that go into the waste stream.

The Northeast has limited landfill capacity, dense population centers, a long history of using waste-to-energy (WTE) and interstate transport for disposal. Those realities raise disposal costs and political resistance to new landfills as municipal budgets are squeezed by inflation and higher disposal costs. Meanwhile climate and environmental policy is stronger here than many other U.S. regions, which pushes municipalities toward diversion, organics programs, and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals.

The visited IWS facility used to be the largest transfer station in New Jersey. It began being referred to as a “transfer station” after the Solid Waste Act of 1965 - an amendment to the Clean Air Act that created a new solid waste management system. Transfer stations temporarily stored trash until it was packaged and transported to recycling centers or landfills.

After IWS acquired the location, it became one of the largest recycling facilities in the region. The IWS building is equipped with sophisticated sorting equipment and integrated conveyors involving both human sorters and computer-assisted robots like one called “samurai” because of its robot-arm-thrashing maneuvers that can identify and rapidly sort materials.

William Aduleit, IWS’ Director of Post Collection, gave the group a tour of the company’s capabilities in separating materials and steering the resultant streams into dedicated areas where they are packaged and shipped to locations in the United States and abroad for additional processing.

“Most of the domestic paper mills are overwhelmed at the moment,” Aduleit said, “so most of the paper products are often shipped back to the original mills in India or China where they are reprocessed into similar packaging where they were first made from.”

Plastics are sorted into several different categories and pelletized. One of the most common types of recyclable plastic is PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate), which is used for water bottles, and other food containers. Other recyclable plastic include HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene), LDPE (Low-Density Polyethylene), and PP (Polypropylene).

“A growing number of plastic manufacturers are now using a clear plastic packaging production instead of the more expensive color production with a thin plastic sleeve containing a brand’s color, style and content which can more easily be removed for recycling purposes,” Aduleit added.

The Town and Village of Warwick work with Orange County and Sustainable Warwick to manage waste and reduce disposal costs through robust recycling and composting programs. Key policies emphasize single-stream recycling, food scrap collection, yard waste management, and public education. The Town and Villages of Greenwood Lake and Warwick have weekly curbside single-stream recycling. The list of mandatory recyclable items is set by Orange County and includes: aluminum and tin cans, aluminum foil, glass bottles, plastic containers labeled #1 through #7, juice boxes, milk cartons, chipboard and boxboard.

The Village of Warwick also operates a community composting program using leaves, grass clippings, and manure to produce high-quality compost and mulch for residents, free of charge. In partnership with Sustainable Warwick, the Village collects food scraps from residents at the Warwick Valley Farmers’ Market on Sundays from May through November. Likewise, Greenwood Lake residents can participate in a food waste program offered through Grow Local Greenwood Lake and with cooperation by the Lakeside Farmers Market.

As food waste can comprise up to 25% of greenhouse gas emissions in landfills, diverting food waste to compost programs is valuable to any community. All three villages and the town operate a brush disposal program from April through November where residents can drop off brush that is then processed into compost or mulch. The Town’s Highway Department also accepts yard waste.

The challenges of diverting waste from landfills into recycling of materials that can be reused in manufacturing is complex, as it involves coordination and an adjustment in consumer behavior that would affect buying habits, manufacturing, logistics, education, and cooperation from schools, hospitals and factories as well as households and retailers. Materials like televisions and computer monitors and freon-containing appliance such as refrigerators and air conditioners must be recycled as hazardous waste at the Orange County Landfill or a designated facility. Many electronics stores also have take-back programs and Sustainable Warwick also runs a “Coolest Recycling Drive” to collect appliances with refrigerants.

For information on Sustainable Warwick or the Climate Smart Community Task Force Committee, log onto www.sustainablewarwick.org or villageofwarwickny.gov/sustainability/.