Jessica Riehl Photography Blog

TFC is one of my favorite businesses. I love them, because they make it easy for me to get rid of all the packaging crap that comes with my stuff.  They help me clean up my messes and use my trash to make new stuff. Well, they don’t make the new stuff themselves, but they make sure it gets to some one who will use it and not put it in the garbage. Last week, Pat Carroll, my new EDAC friend (Chesapeake Economic Development Advisory Council), gave me a tour of the facility. I am a big recycler and had a bunch of questions on the process and how it all works. I was also curious to know if there were better choices I could be making.

So, what did I learn? Recycling is a very hands on process, literally. From the time you place you recyclables into the right container until the time they get loaded onto a truck, someone is touching your trash. The trucks empty their loads into a big area at the warehouse and it gets shoveled onto a big conveyor belt, where the sorting process begins.  TFC has a huge system of conveyor belts that take your single stream of trash and sorts it into individual components such as paper, cardboard, aluminum.  Once it is sorted it gets bundled in order to ship off to companies who buy the material to make other products.  That’s the really simple version. The sorting equipment is a combination of sophisticated technology and human hands.  Single stream means you can put everything they can recycle into one can.

I am very passionate about recycling and my husband is very passionate about energy conservation. So, we make a good team. I know that if you live in Chesapeake, it is difficult to get everything recycled. I actually pay TFC for a large can that they pick up once a week. I can recycle cardboard, aluminum, glass, plastic bottles, junk mail, and magazines. By paying for a larger can, we have reduced our trash output dramatically. We now only put our trash can out every three weeks or so and then it is never, ever full. We usually end up with 2-3 small garbage bags.  Pat said 2/3rds of our trash is recyclable.  I 100% believe it.We also compost to further reduce our amount of trash.

If you would like to take a tour of the plant, you can sign up on their website at: Tidewater Fibre Corp.

Here are the specific questions I asked:

*Q: Can I recycle my Silk Soy Milk Containers? They are made out of cardboard.

A: No, you can’t.  The wax coating prohibits us from recycling it. If you can purchase juice or milk in a plastic jug, then that is a better choice since we can recycle it.  Otherwise we just have to throw it away.

*Q: I heard you that those manila yellow envelopes are bad. How so?

A: We do recycle the manila envelopes, but they do require a bit of extra processing in order to be used in recycled paper. The paper requires bleaching to remove the yellow color. So, if you choose white envelopes vice yellow envelopes you will reduce the amount of bleach that gets used and ultimately has to be disposed.

*Q: What do you do with all the stuff people throw in their bin that you can’t recycle?

A: Well, first, we have to remove the item and that gets done manually by our employees. Employees are stationed along the conveyor belts and hand pick the items out and throw them in a can. From there we responsibly dispose of trash through either the landfill or an incinerator.  Some of it just hangs around the plant as decoration.

*Q: Why can’t you recycle plastic bags?

A: Recycling plastic bags requires a completely different type of equipment than we have.  Plastic bags are actually very bad for our equipment since the bags get bound up in it. You know how your bits of string get caught on the rotating brush of your vacuum cleaner and in order to get it to run right you have to cut all the strings out? That’s exactly like our system.  The recyclers who take the plastic bag bins from the grocery store have the right equipment to process them.

See how the plastic bags bind up the equipment? At the end of every shift a TFC employee goes in and cuts all of the plastic out.

Here are a few other photos from my tour:

The conveyor system.

This is the cardboard plant area...just think of all the people who throw this cardboard straight into the landfill. Imagine that much space being freed up, just through recycling. Think about all the boxes you get in the mail and the packaging surrounding your soda can boxes, your cereal boxes...

A few facts about aluminum cans from Earth911.org:

Making new aluminum cans from used cans takes 95 percent less energy and 20 recycled cans can be made with the energy needed to produce one can using virgin ore.

A used aluminum can is recycled and back on the grocery shelf as a new can, in as little as 60 days. That’s closed loop recycling at its finest!

Aluminum is a durable and sustainable metal: two-thirds of the aluminum ever produced is in use today.

This is a bale of paper bound for a plant that does the actual production of recycled paper.

Is your newspaper in this pile?