Lincoln's got 'the blues' as recycling efforts bag up

Those blue bags sure make an arduous journey.From the roughly 288,000 created each year at a cost of about $25,000, the city of Lincoln's blue bags intended for residents to put their recyclables in wind up being torn open while traveling across conveyer belts at the Western Placer Waste Management Authority's Material Recovery Facility and their contents separated to be sold for re-sale.But the journey begins with residents being able to pick up two 20-bag rolls of blue bags per trip to City Hall or Orchard Creek Lodge in Lincoln's Del Webb community. About 15 cases - each case contains 20 rolls - are distributed each week to City Hall and 10 cases are dropped off in Del Webb every week, said Doyle Champlain, public works operation manager.In the Know: Recycling universal wasteEffective Feb. 9, the state of California is prohibiting households and businesses from putting "universal" waste into the trash.Universal waste is in a category of hazardous waste that include electronic waste, fluorescent lamps and tubes, household batteries and mercury-containing devices such as thermostats and thermometers.Universal waste items must now be dropped off for free to Placer County residents at the Western Placer Waste Management Authority at 3195 Athens Road, near the corner of Athens and Fiddyment Avenue.The Material Recovery Facility's hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.Lincoln resident Bob Morton recently stopped by City Hall to refill his stock of blue bags."I think we should do a little bit to keep the environment from filling up with trash," Morton said as to why he participates in the city's strictly voluntary recycling program.Two bundles last him about four months.Once obtained, blue bags are to be filled by City of Lincoln refuse customers with clean and dry household newspaper, bulk mail, scrap paper, paperboard, plastic, aluminum cans and tin foil. The various items can mix in one bag until it's full. The blue bags are then placed in one's regular trashcan and driven by garbage truck to the waste management authority's MRF (pronounced "merf") at the intersection of Athens Road and Fiddyment Avenue between Lincoln and Roseville. The WPWMA was established in 1978 through a Joint Exercise of Powers Agreement between Placer County and the cities of Lincoln, Roseville and Rocklin "for the purpose of acquiring, owning, operating and maintaining a sanitary landfill site and all related improvements," according to www.wpwma.com. Each city holds one seat and the county holds two on the WPWMA board of directors. John Pedri, Lincoln's public works director, said Lincoln is considered a 20 percent owner of the facility. The facility's managing staff of about 12 is supplied by the county, and the private company Nortech's staff of about 230 is contracted to run the plant, while about 12 people with Madera Disposal Inc. bury garbage and operate the landfill, said Bill Zimmerman, solid waste program manager of the facility.After household garbage arrives at the landfill, it first runs through the MRF. Created in response to California Assembly Bill 939, which was passed in 1989 and mandated cities and counties to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills by 50 percent, it's a "dirty" MRF, explained Larry Buckle, a former employee of the WPWMA and a Lincoln consultant on solid waste issues. A dirty MRF means recyclables are stripped from mixed garbage as it travels across conveyor belts. Paul Szura, assistant general manager of the facility, said all incoming trash goes through screens that separate the trash by size. With three long conveyor belts for items larger than 12 inches and three for items smaller, Nortech workers line up beside the conveyor belts and grab recyclables that they put in appropriate containers around their workstations. After recyclables have been picked out and magnets run across the garbage stream picking up batteries people have thrown into the trash - even though they shouldn't - the garbage travels another conveyor belt to be dumped into large semi-trucks. The trucks take the leftover garbage to be buried in the landfill.Szura said between 800 and 1,000 tons of trash is processed every day at the WPWMA.Eric Oddo, senior civil engineer with the WPWMA, said trash from south of Colfax to the Sacramento County line goes through the facility. The WPMA Web site says the MRF currently diverts from disposal about 20 percent of material received.Oddo added the WPWMA has been able to respond to growth in the region, recycling mandates from the state and "pretty much, we're a cornerstone to the recycling market."As for the blue bags from Lincoln, Placer County or Auburn that go across the line, the ones that haven't broken open are collected, dumped down a chute and piled together on the floor of the MRF until there are enough for a specific blue bag run. Oddo said the blue bags run separately because they presumably contain 100 percent recyclables, versus the mixed trash of other runs. "It's really built to maximize recovery from those blue bags in an efficient manner," Oddo said.During a tour of the MRF on Feb. 9, Lincoln's Pedri and Buckle opened some of the blue bags to see how effectively Lincoln residents are using them. There were soup cans, paper and many plastic bottles.Pedri said when he and Buckle previously went through the large pile of blue bags on the floor of the MRF, about 90 percent of all the items were recyclable. And even on Feb. 9, Buckle was encouraged by what he saw at the MRF."It was very reassuring to see that the vast majority of the blue bags in the system were Lincoln's," he said. "The blue bag program is apparently meeting the goals of the city."Pedri added that how receptive Lincoln residents have been to participating in the blue bag program indicates the success a curbside recycling program would have.Joshua W. Bingham can be reached at joshuab@goldcountrymedia.com.