There is a great deal of talk within the industry today about If single stream recycling is going to be successful, municipalities must be willing to spend some time and money educating the home owner (and commercial generators) in regards to quality issues. Education will be crucial to the success of the program. The term single stream has taken on different meanings over the years, so let’s first define the term. Those who have been in the industry for a while may have a tendency to relate the term single stream processing to a mixed waste processing facility (known by some as a “dirty MRF”), which attempts to sort quality recyclables from garbage. Many of these facilities did not get good marks from consumers because of their limited success in putting together clean shipments of recyclables. The term that relates more accurately to the technology being developed and marketed today for processing is “single stream recycling.” This term would describe a recyclable mixture containing both fibers and containers commingled in the same stream. There are pros and cons to single stream recycling. However, with the proper set-up and good process management, the pros will easily outweigh the cons. Some of the benefits to single stream recycling are lower collection costs, higher diversion rates due to easier participation by the homeowner, one tipping floor, and one residue stream to manage. Overall system design is another ingredient vital to the success of a single stream recycling process. It is important to understand what materials should be removed at the pre-sort and in what order other materials should be sorted. An equipment layout that uses self dumping bunkers and live floor bunkers can provide operational savings such as reduced vehicle movement on the process floor. This can reduce the need for a larger building size, as well as reducing the size of loaders required in the plant and allowing for a less demanding loader maintenance schedule. There are a number of communities in North America that are using this technology and have realized great savings in their recycling program costs. The move to single stream recycling is on, and the benefits are attractive! There is a great deal of talk within the industry today about Single Steam collection and processing. This mostly is due to the financial benefits brought on by the timesavings of picking up a totally commingled fiber and container stream at the street level. Municipalities and waste haulers are taking an in depth look at Single Stream Recycling as a way of streamlining collection and processing to reduce overall operating costs of their recycling programs. While the savings can be considerable, one must not underestimate the importance of a well-designed and well-managed process within the MRF.
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