Single-stream allows people to put plastic, paper, glass and metal in the same bin, what Denver residents know as a purple cart that they take on a semi-weekly trip to their street or alley.
Shredded paper is recyclable. Simply dispose of it in a clear plastic bag so WM workers can easily identify it on the sorting line.
Plastic bags are otherwise not welcome. When they get stuck on the line, workers have to lock down machinery and clean it out. It's more economical to return grocery bags to the store, so they in turn can return them to the manufacturer.
In Denver, you can recycle any container with a 1 through 7 on it. (WM is working on updating their marketing materials to clarify that it's no longer just 1 and 2.)
Plastic containers such as strawberry cartons and bottles that have a mouth as large as the container are welcome at the single-stream plant.
It takes 100 years for an aluminum can to decompose, 1 million years for a glass bottle. Consider that those averages weren't figured with Colorado's dry soil at the
Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site, our city's landfill.
The tipping floor is the area of the single-stream plant where drivers tip contents out of their trucks.
At the end of the day at the single-stream facility, workers sweep it clean to maximize safety and efficiency the next day.
The Colorado single-stream site produces hundreds of 1,500-pound bales of recycled materials each day. At 10:44 a.m. on a recent Thursday, the employees had already created 136 of them.
An average piece of cardboard will exist as corrugated paper, then a box, then toilet paper roll before living its golden years as a grocery sack.
Tin cans and their labels can be reincarnated as construction rebar and drywall among other things.
Most glass recycled in this state goes to Coors' sister company Rocky Mountain Bottling.
WM's e-waste, or e-scrap, division disassembles computers and other scraps from Colorado and points west, sending gold, plastic, metals and lead to businesses that can reuse them. WM offered the service for free at
an event a couple weeks ago; people can pay a nominal fee to drop it off at their plant anytime though. When you use WM, you won't find your old Dell in a
picture like this.
WM fills six train cars with recyclable bales each day. Their destinations vary monthly. WM account manager Joyce Bartell says, "Our business is based on a lively bidding process -- the commodities are sent to the purchaser who has the best deal for that commodity during that month."
The single-stream facility at 54th Avenue and Franklin Street processes 10,000 tons of recyclables per month. It is currently the only plant in Colorado that offers single-stream.
Outside the single-stream recycling world, Patagonia Inc.
recycles some of its clothing. |