New York City Expanding Municipal Recycling Service To Now Accept All Plastics, Even Toys
April 30, 2013 Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis 
New York City selected the 30th Street Pier in the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, as the location for a new state-of-the-art recycling facility to be built and operated by Sims Municipal Recycling. The facility is slated to open in Summer 2013 and will process the majority of New York City’s commingled curbside material. Rendering courtesy of Sims Municipal Recycling.
We all know how confusing it can be trying to figure out what plastics you can and can’t recycle, but at least in New York City, it’s about to get a little easier for residents.
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced last week, that effective immediately, the city for the first time will allow residents to recycle all rigid plastics, including toys, hangers, shampoo bottles, coffee cups, and food containers. Until now, only plastics bottles and jugs were allowable.
The new service is part of the city’s partnership with Sims Municipal Recycling. The Bloomberg Administration says the recycling expansion will result in the removal of about 50,000 tons of waste from landfills every year and save “city taxpayers almost $600,000 each year in export costs.”
The administration says this is part of the city’s commitment to double its “recycling rate to 30 percent by 2017.” For the next few months, much of the recycling will go to the Sims-operated Claremont Recycling Center in Jersey City, N.J.
The Claremont facility has a number of sorting systems that include the following:
- Hand sorting used to capture bulky rigid plastics (e.g. buckets and toys).
- Optical sensors separate plastics including: PET, HDPE and mixed plastics.
- A grapple and a drum magnet used to recover bulky metals.
- An eddy current magnet used to recover non-ferrous metals.
- An overband magnet used to recover tin cans.
- Bags are opened and glass is removed by a trommel screening device.
While the bulk of plastics is going to the Claremont facility, Sims is currently nearing the completion of a new recycling facility at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal in Sunset Park. The new facility will take over the volume beginning this summer.
Among the features of the new recycling facility being built will be the sustainable design elements that will minimize environmental impacts, says the New York City Environmental Development Corporation (NYCEDC).
The facility’s sustainable design features will include green roofs, renewable energy generation, and onsite storm water treatment.
Two out of the three large recycling buildings – the bale storage and processing buildings – are now up. They were manufactured in the United States by Nucor Building Systems, with about 90 percent recycled steel content.
The construction of the third building – the receiving building – is underway, and it will extend over the water to enclose the barge unloading operations.
Construction of the receiving building will also include a 500kW photovoltaic power system that’s due to be completed by fall 2013. The piers and major components of the dock, as well as dredging have been completed.
In addition, the city constructed three reefs off the west end of the pier. The reefs will provide a new habitat for marine life, offsetting the habitat that was removed when dredging occurred along the face of the dock.
The dock service will be a very important aspect to the operation, with the NYCEDC saying that “by utilizing New York’s waterways, the new facility will displace 260,000 vehicle miles annually traveled on inner city roadways.”
The NYCEDC also expects that the dock service “will have a positive impact on infrastructure maintenance, fuel consumption, congestion, and vehicle emissions.”
The Bloomberg administration further explains the need for the expanded recycling service, saying that “because it takes 70 percent less energy to make plastic from recycled plastics rather than from raw materials, it’s going to help us further reduce our city’s carbon footprint.”
The NYCEDC continued that with a $48 million investment from the city and another $46 million investment from Sims, the new recycling facility – designed by Selldorf Architects – is also expected to create about 100 new permanent jobs.
The city says that New Yorkers will receive mailers that describe the expansion of the recycling program, including “easy-to-understand” illustrations of what they can recycle.
The city will also send decals to landlords and homeowners, so they can replace the current recycling labels on their trash bins. While the new program has already begun, the city says it won’t begin enforcement until the rules are adopted this July.
Sims’ Recycling Education Fun Facts
- Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours.
- It takes the same amount of energy to produce 20 recycled aluminum cans as it does to produce just one new aluminum can.
- Producing recycled aluminum creates 97% less water pollution than producing new metal from ore.
- Every three months, Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the entire US commercial air fleet.
- Recycling plastic saves 84% of the energy required to make plastic bottles from raw materials (i.e., crude oil).
- Glass can be recycled again and again with no loss in quality or purity.
- Three fourths of all American steel ends up recycled into new products and all of today’s steel products contain recycled steel.
- The typical appliance consists of about 75% steel by weight and is easily recyclable.
- Energy requirements decrease 60% when using steel scrap to make new steel compared to mining iron ore and smelting it in a blast furnace.
- Recycling one ton of steel saves 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal and 120 pounds of limestone.
- Automobiles are the most recycled consumer products, with large amounts of steel and other valuable recyclable materials, which have a recycling rate close to 100% – meaning that a car at the end of its useful life is not destined for a landfill, but for a recycling facility.
Reader comments and input are always welcomed!
Reader Comments (1)
It's great for the people of NY. It will be easy for them to dispose their plastics now. Plastics can be recycled to prepare interesting stuff like posts, retaining walls, and many other things.