The Pennsylvania Recycling Markets Center Inc. (RMC), Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has honored the Northern Lancaster County Authority (NLCA) with the 2016 William M. Heenan Jr. Recycling Markets Development Award for its commitment to creation of new markets for recycled mixed colored glass.

 

RMC recognized NLCA, based in Denver, Pennsylvania, for its use of recycled glass as a growing medium for the reed bed filtration system at the authority’s Beam Road Wastewater Treatment Plant. To RMC’s knowledge, the plant is the first location in the United States to use sharp-free, manufactured recycled glass aggregate for this purpose.

 

A reed bed or constructed wetland is essentially a type of water filtration system that mirrors the way natural wetlands break down waste in water and filter out impurities. Wetland reeds are cultivated in a recycled glass aggregate filter bed where the plant roots and natural microbial processes turn wastewater solids into treated water and benign solids. Free of chemicals and odors, these beds have been proven to be both cost-effective and energy-efficient and to significantly reduce or even eliminate the need for disposal of the solids, reducing the volume of solids by as much as 90 percent. NLCA says its was the first reed bed biosolids treatment system in Pennsylvania.

 

Typically, the growing media for reed bed wastewater filtration is a very porous, fine aggregate, such as sand, but recycled glass aggregate manufactured to a uniform, sharp-free specification, has been demonstrated in other countries. NLCA is currently using 800 tons of processed, crushed, size-graded and color-mixed container glass – an amount roughly equivalent to what a rural Pennsylvania county may collect in 2.5 years.

 

Phragmites austalis, common reed plants, are cultivated in a recycled glass aggregate filter bed where the plant roots and natural microbial processes turn wastewater solids into treated water and benign solids.

 

“Our sand was 20 years old and had broken down over time,” says Jason Coyle, plant superintendent for NLCA. “With technical input from the RMC, we were interested in bringing [recycled glass] to Pennsylvania.”

 

Originally developed by the Max Planck Institute of Germany and the Netherlands approximately 30 years ago, the recycled glass process has been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and has been used in sand mound septic systems for about a decade. NLCA is currently using processed, crushed, size-graded and color-mixed container glass obtained from Cougle’s Recycling Inc. of Hamburg, Pennsylvania. “No one has put this into an application of this size,” says Coyle.

 

The 2016 Reed Bed Upgrade was a win-win for all parties involved, says the RMC. Using Cougle’s Recycling Inc.’s manufactured recycled glass aggregate saved thousands of dollars of freight expense compared to hauling the nearest available sand from Delaware or Maryland. Donald Kellenberger, of Kellenberger Excavating in Spring Township, Pennsylvania, says final grading of the recycled glass aggregate was easier than sand. He says the manufactured recycled glass aggregate held its shape and position better than the sand and this ease of installation resulted in significantly less time to complete the installation.

 

“Proper processing of solids is a major issue faced by wastewater treatment plants such as NLCA’s plant,” says Robert Bylone, RMC’s president and executive director. “What they’ve been able to do is take an existing treatment method and build on its sustainability by using a recycled-content product. For these reasons, and for the courage of the NLCA to pioneer recycled glass aggregate for this use, we are proud to recognize them with the William M. Heenan, Jr. Recycling Markets Development Award.” Bylone continues, “The RMC will continue to expand this use across Pennsylvania and potentially the nation.”

“A win for the environment, while simultaneously reducing construction costs for the residents of Brecknock Township and excelling treatment output, made receiving the 2016 Heenan Award very rewarding,” says Jason Coyle.

The William M. Heenan, Jr. Recycling Markets Development Award is named in memory of William M. Heenan Jr., a lifelong international ambassador of the recycling industry who was instrumental in supporting the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to initially vision and fund inception of the RMC.

 

The RMC is organized as a non-profit corporation and works to develop and expand the use of recycled materials and recycled content product markets in Pennsylvania. 

For every material recovery facility (MRF), safety and productivity are top priority, and it takes the right employees to help to maintain those practices. Speakers in the session “Maximizing Safety and Productivity” at the 2016 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference Oct. 20 in Chicago shared their insights into how they ensure operations are safe and productive by hiring appropriate workers from the start, and offering incentives and support.

Michael Timpane, principal for the sustainability and recycling consultancy firm Resource Recycling Systems (RRS), headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, who moderated the session, said to the speakers directly, “I’d suffice to say that you want a safe plant.”

Safety is seen as a higher importance than production at TFC (Tidewater Fibre Corp.) Recycling, said speaker Michael Benedetto. Benedetto is president and owner of the Chesapeake, Virginia-based family-owned recycling company. 

It’s important to find people who can be both safe and hard workers. Benedetto said it is a challenge to find people who are willing to stand at sorting lines picking through various materials. TFC Recycling is Virginia’s largest residential curbside recycler, serving more than 700,000 households and 4,000 commercial customers. 

Yet, Benedetto said, “You start right by hiring right.”

TFC Recycling, which runs more than 100 collection trucks through its two MRFs, works with the city jail to hire incarcerated individuals for quality control. Pointing out the benefits in hiring workers who are in jail, Benedetto said they have reliable transportation; make it to work on time; and don’t mind picking through trash, as it’s something else to do. For reliable and dependable hands, they are hired once they are released from jail.

As for incentives for its 300 or so employees, TFC Recycling hosts cookouts several times yearly, offers wellness programs and promotes from within the company, where employees can advance from sorter to driver to manager. TFC also offers safety and attendance bonuses to its drivers.

Rather than traditional insurance, the recycling company uses captive insurance, where 100-plus companies have come together for a heterogeneous plan with a shared risk.

Benedetto said, “There’s a big incentive for us to be safe and keeping employees on the job.” 

Speaker Jerry Sjogren said E.L. Harvey & Sons’ greatest asset is its people. Also family-owned, E.L. Harvey & Sons, Westborough, Massachusetts, is a full-service waste management company that handles residential, commercial, and construction contracts that include waste disposal, junk removal, recycling services and dumpster delivery.

“Keeping those good people makes all the difference in the world,” said Sjogren, vice president, material recovery and process optimization, for the 100-plus-year-old E.L. Harvey.

He used the phrase, “Slow to hire, quick to fire,” when explaining the value in good hiring practices and ensuring the right worker is getting the job. “Make sure you’re doing your due diligence,” Sjogren said. “We should all take our time to hire a candidate, including working through temp agencies.” 

Both speakers emphasized the importance of drug testing workers. Performing drug tests prior to hiring as well as after an accident are worthwhile, they said.

Guaranteeing workers completely understand their role on the job is worth the time it takes to train them, Sjogren said. He suggested pairing up a new employee with a mentor on the job. 

“It’s overwhelming for some of these people; they’ve never worked in this industry before,” Sjogren said. “We cannot expect people to come in and be safe if we don’t give them the tools and resources to do so.” 

John Schumacher, senior vice president at Assurance Agency, Schaumburg, Illinois, and the final speaker of the session, discussed how safety affects recyclers’ bottom lines, including the need to train workers. He touched on the purpose of written programs, formalizing inspections and using measurements. 

In addition, Schumacher warned of infrastructure errors such as a lack of guarding or exposed conveyor belts. Fire protection, he said, is a big issue among MRFs. 

The 2016 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference was Oct. 19-21 in Chicago at the Marriott Chicago Downtown Magnificent Mile.

The slump seen in prices of commodities managed by recyclers will continue as the United States encounters its eighth consecutive year of economic expansion and employment growth is expected to slow, according to economist Bill Strauss, who spoke during the keynote session of the 17th annual Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference Oct. 19 in Chicago. 

In the “Economic Insights” keynote session, Strauss, senior economist and economic adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said the path of the current recovery is restrained compared with past deep recession recovery cycles. Since World War II, expansions have typically lasted about five years, he said.

“Part of our weakness is we’ve seen the dollar strengthen,” Strauss said. “The rest of the world lowered interest rates and made us far more attractive.” 

He added, “Even in the eighth year of expansion, we have slacks.”

Those slacks include the nation’s labor markets. Wages across the country have remained low due to slacks in labor markets. “The good news is in the second quarter we started to see a bump,” Strauss said.

Strauss called the markets impressive as the United States added more than 2.4 million jobs during the last year. “This is impressive, adding jobs at a more robust rate,” Strauss said. 

However, he said, during the most recent recession, 6 percent of working Americans lost their jobs. It wasn’t until 2014 that the country fully recovered those jobs, Strauss pointed out.

He used a baseball reference when describing where labor markets stand today: “We’re in the bottom of the eighth inning of labor markets given the path we’ve been on,” Strauss said. As people make more money, they will spend more.

Beyond labor markets, Strauss said sectors throughout the economy continue to improve. The manufacturing sector came out of the recession “vibrantly,” he said. “From manufacturing to construction, I can’t find one that has slack,” Strauss said.

With the unemployment rate at 5 percent, Strauss questioned the audience attendees: “How many of you think our labor market is normal?”

Without a single hand being raised, he said, “Shocking, I never thought in my life I would be at a level that we normally think of as a natural rate and people would not think that this is a normal type of labor market.” (He said he has asked more than 16,00 people that question and only about 14 people have raised their hands.)

The share of those unemployed more than six months remains significantly high. Strauss explained that “a lot of work is being done” to determine how the country is in its eighth year of expansion and a quarter of workers cannot find a job for six months or more.

With the unemployment rate remaining below the natural rate, employment growth is expected to slow.

“Employees working part time for economic reasons remains somewhat elevated,” he offered. 

The U.S. has added workers despite a plunge in productivity growth. Productivity saw a gain between 1 percent and 1-1/4 percent while gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 1.3 percent over the past year, he said. Still, growth is quite poor, Strauss said. “Yes we’re growing but it’s not like we’re setting the world on fire,” he said.

He predicted the growth over the next three years will be much of the same – decent, but not extraordinary. The outlook for the economy, he said, is to expand at a pace around trend through 2019.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which is the branch of the Federal Reserve Board that determines the direction of monetary policy, expects GDP to grow around this trend over the next three years, Strauss said.

And yet, the United States will have a difficult time sustaining 2.4 million workers with just 1 percent growth.

Referring to the country’s productivity growth as “abysmal,” Strauss said, “A large part of the weakness in productivity growth has been the weak pace of investment, which will reverse itself as we move forward.”

Regarding other investments, Strauss highlighted how low energy prices benefit the U.S. as natural gas prices have declined and remain low. While the U.S. at one time imported 60 percent of its oil needs, today with the increase of hydraulic fracking, the country imports 30 percent.

He also shared how in 2015 light vehicle sales in the nation set a record; although, Strauss anticipates sales of these vehicles will edge lower. Light truck sales year to date are up 7.1 percent while passenger cars are down 8 percent, Strauss said.

Alternative-powered vehicles, including hybrids, he added, are a small fraction of total vehicle sales compared with diesel and gasoline sales. Their market share represents 4 percent, and have been in decline for the past two years

The housing market is anticipated to continue to improve through 2017.

“The United States is probably the strongest country out there, relatively speaking,” Strauss said.

The 2016 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference is Oct. 19-21 in Chicago at the Marriott Chicago Downtown Magnificent Mile.

The 2017 Federation of New York Solid Waste Association’s Conference and Trade Show will run from May 21 to May 24, 2017, at the Sagamore in Bolton Landing, New York. There will be 90 presentations with an expanded trade show supported by 120 major exhibitors. More than 700 attendees from over 32 states, Canada and Europe are drawn to the progam, show organizers say.

Exhibiting is a great opportunity to reach Northeast solid waste and recycling professionals, the association says. Trade show exhibitors representing equipment manufacturers, engineering, finance and legal consultants, associations, government agencies and environmental groups will reach public and private sector decision-makers from New York and the Northeast. An afternoon Monday Exhibitors’ Reception is designed for extended networking after a busy day. Daily food aisles and a chance to win cash prizes based on the number of booths that attendees visit over three days all add up to contacts for your business. There are a limited number of outdoor exhibition spots to feature equipment as well.

Sponsoring events throughout the conference is a way to both increase name recognition and stand apart from competitors. Sponsorships are available from $150 to $5,000 and are workable to highlight specific needs at the level that meets a specific budget.
 
Advertising is a means to display unique services to solid waste and recycling professionals through print and electronic media. All packages include placement in the conference program, welcome program, digital resource marketplace and an excel database of attendees.