Concerning Recycling, the last frontier (and birds)

This week's riddle:
When the first European permanent settlers arrived, what bird species was most numerous in North America?


Passenger Pigeon?

Parker Phillips
USA

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I asked Greg Cornwell, Education Curator, Roper Mountain Science Center, Greenville, SC. He ventured, "...the red-wing blackbird which is native and polygamous. It lives in marshes and for many years has had the largest number of individuals of any species. In other words it is most common."

Tim D Nafziger PE
Greenville, South Carolina USA

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Jim,

Great seeing you and Laura in Atlanta. The IPST event was thoroughly enjoyable. And I learned some new things about the paper industry to boot. Dr. Frank Murray threw down the glove to challenge industry to make a superbox. Next (or in addition) they should take up your challenge for a supersack for garbage.

Peace,

Gene Canavan
Prattville, Alabama, USA

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Jim,

If everyone recycled paper & board like myself, a scrupulous type of person, your proposed project wouldn't have a chance. I just had a thought, would there be any feasibility for a company to send a truck around to residents or to have a central pickup point and pay residents for paper and board by the pound (by the grade) like the junk man in the old days? That would eliminate the need of reworking all that garbage.

The loss in strength from repeated and increased recycling would be a problem. One answer would be to use strength enhancers like starches and other glues. There would be a limit to this. On the other hand, dry forming could increase strength and reduce the need for water. Dry forming may be a process that should be looked at again, looking for fiberization techniques that would reduce the need for high energy hammermills.

Another part of the picture might be what happens when wood is found to be a feasible input stream for making liquid fuels (or paper and board). Recycling of all woody household waste from the yard could become part of that stream. Our village comes around once a month and chips all the branches four feet and longer and up to six inches in diameter. It would be a short step to move to sending the chips to a refiner and our neighborhoods becomes a new supply source. I have three huge softwood trees in the backyard that may have to come down someday. What are woodchips selling for these days?

Chuck Green
Webster, New York, USA

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And Chuck has more to say on the subject....

Jim,

Did you see this in the TAPPI electronic newsletter this week:

THE U.S. NEEDS TO RECYCLE EVEN MORE PAPER according to Pete Grogan, recycling market development manager for Weyerhaeuser. Grogan notes that the U.S. has an opportunity to significantly increase its recovery of recyclable materials, estimating that Americans dispose of $3 billion worth of recoverable paper each year. "Tossing paper into a landfill is not a sustainable practice," Grogan says. "It depletes resources, wastes energy, and represents a missed opportunity to participate in the multi-million dollar recycling economic sector. America Recycles Day on November 15 is a timely reminder that recycling is good for the environment and good for the economy," Grogan adds. "We've made progress, but we need to do better. Today the U.S. is recovering 53% of its paper and Japan is recovering 70%, for example. Demand for recovered paper internationally is increasing at 10 million tpy. We estimate that there are between 30 and 35 million tons of paper in American being disposed of each year. Only 55% of Americans living in single-family homes have residential recycling services and only 50% of them use the service. We need to do better."

It was timed right for your blurb.

Chuck Green
Webster, New York, USA

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Hey, Jim,

Certainly one can reclaim fiber from garbage. There is, or was, such a plant, at Franklin Ohio, using Black-Clawson technology. I only know that Dorr-Oliver supplied a fluid bed incinerator for the residue from that process.

I believe the better answer for garbage is to burn it for energy. I guess one could say that garbage is the ultimate renewable resource.

Bridgeport Conn. has such a plant. It is a "mass burn" plant, everything goes into the boiler. The steam goes next door to a utility.

The original Bridgeport plant was based on sorting and separating, making refuse derived fuel ("RDF"). It was a complete fiasco, solely because of the municipal bidding process. It was designed by American Can's Americology division, and probably would have worked had Americology implemented it. However, in a market where the lowest bidder rules, the result was a plant that did not work. Eventually they demolished the plant and built the mass burn facility.

Certainly incineration is the best long term solution to eliminating landfills, leachate, ocean dumping, etc.

Those of us who have designed and run incinerators know that there should be no air pollution problems, given the current technology for scrubbing the stack gases. (No comments from self-styled environmentalists welcome on this subject!)

Should utilities or paper mills undertake to accept garbage and burn it for a fee?

Best regards,

Peter Angevine
USA

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Good ideas. I know in the mid-1980's Tennessee River Pulp and Paper was looking at accepting (for a fee) hazardous waste to burn in the lime kiln. I don't think anything ever came of it.

Bridgeport--I worked on the feasibility study for a newsprint mill there in the 1990's.

Jim

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Jim,

Your comments on recyclable paper garbage bags are interesting. St. Regis Paper Co. developed and marketed a system for multiwall extensible paper garbage bags in the late 1960s. The large bags fit into a metal stand with a ring clamp and lid. It was used in a number of cities - including Picayune, MS where I was living at the time - but didn't catch on nationwide.

There are also mechanized/automated systems to recover recyclable fiber from municipal waste. ORFA Corp. had a commercial scale plant to do this in Philadelphia in the late 1980s. It included magnetic separation to remove ferrous metals, air flotation and screening to remove glass and other heavy components and ozone treatment to sterilize the paper fibers. The resulting paper fibers were evaluated at Western Michigan University and also in mill trials. The fiber mix was similar to what the recycled fiber suppliers sell as mixed paper - it worked as filler furnish in multi-ply board. However, ORFA was not a commercial success due to the relatively low price of waste paper at the time.

Best regards,

Chuck Klass
Redington Beach, Florida USA

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