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Guest column

Small steps help make recycling a bigger success

By FRANK WENTZEL
Published May 2, 2005

With the recent passing of Earth Day and the advent of spring, we think about our environment, and recycling comes to mind.

We hear that recycling can help save the environment, but when we try it we find it complicated. Recycle this, don't recycle that. Every community seems to have different recycling rules.

To understand some of the reasons behind the rules, let's look at the item that first comes to mind when most people think of recycling - newspaper.

Newspaper has been a staple of recycling drives for Scouts, churches and organizations for almost a century. It is one of Citrus County's highest volume recyclables. Old newspapers are recycled into new newspapers, cereal and detergent boxes, blown insulation, egg cartons and a host of other items.

The newspaper you are reading right now may be part of a newspaper you read six weeks ago. At first glance, newspaper recycling seems so simple - gather the old papers and take them to a recycling center. You then see all the seemingly conflicting statements about what is and what is not acceptable for recycling. Why is it all so complex?

Basically, paper is made up of wood fiber called cellulose. Wood contains about half cellulose and half lignins - a group of adhesivelike materials that hold the wood fibers together. There are a number of methods used to separate the cellulose from the lignins, and each technique produces a product with different fiber properties. By utilizing these different properties, we can produce everything from tissue paper or brilliant white photo paper to newspaper and cardboard.

In addition to the different fiber stock, many additives are used to enhance particular qualities. Starches are a common additive in writing papers along with brighteners to make them look whiter. Magazine paper has up to 50 percent clay rolled into the surface to fill the spaces between the fibers and make it slick so color pictures will print better. Some papers are even "varnished."

The various properties of these different papers also affect how they can be recycled. Brown Kraft paper has long, strong fibers that can be recycled into paper bags and corrugated cardboard. The short fibers of newsprint would be too weak for these products. Clay from recycled magazine stock is required in some paper processes and is a contaminant in others.

The need to get the right recycled raw materials to make a given paper product has resulted in strict specifications for recycled paper grades. There are about 50 different recycled paper grades. Some recycling programs in other areas can take several grades of recycled paper such as magazines or junk mail. Based on the volume of newspaper generated in Citrus County, our collection, processing and storage capabilities, and the available recycled paper markets, we are only able to recycle newspaper.

Recycled newspaper, called ONP (Old News Paper) in the industry, is a very specific product. The grade we generate is called No. 6 ONP. To meet specifications it must be free of plastic and paper bags and other nonnewspaper type papers such as junk mail and magazines.

Any inserts that come in the newspaper are considered acceptable, even if they seem similar to magazine or other type papers. However, if we put nonnewspaper contaminants in the load, our recycler has to remove them before shipment to the mill.

The recycler receives a quality "report card" from the mill. It is a report on random quality checks of newspaper loads. A contamination level of more than 0.1 percent is cause for concern. In order to keep our recycling markets the newspaper must be up to the highest standards. Contaminated loads may be sent back to us for disposal. If the paper mill receives too many contaminated loads from a recycler, they may refuse to accept any more shipments.

Once you realize the scale of operation at a paper mill, you can understand why they are so particular. A newspaper machine is about a quarter of a mile long. The machine makes a sheet of paper between 24- and 30-feet wide at speeds up to 60 mph. Our recycled newspaper goes to a mill in Dublin, Ga. It is the largest recycled newsprint mill in the world. To feed the paper machine, the paper mill needs to receive 1,500 tons of ONP every day. That's about 80 tractor-semitrailer loads.

You can see that they don't have time to sort out contaminants at the mill. We need to do the sorting before the paper gets into the system. Anything else that is put in the recycling container must, at some point, be removed by hand and disposed of. If a newspaper load is too badly contaminated, it may have to be placed in the landfill to avoid creating problems at the paper mill.

Please help us by not putting anything in the newspaper container but clean, dry newspaper. Recycling benefits us all - let's all help make it efficient.

--Frank Wentzel is a recycling specialist at the Citrus County Landfill. Guest columnists write their own views on subjects they choose, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.

[Last modified May 2, 2005, 01:35:17]