 But tonight we are going to talk about where does your trash and recycling go? And I love this picture in the background because it's like this giant trash monster. And you know that's what the world's going to look like eventually if we don't take care of our stuff now. So it's really important to do the right thing now. So who is EcoMain? Has anyone ever heard of us? Fantastic. Has nobody heard of us or has anybody not heard of us at all? Great. So we are the company that takes trash and recycling and some food waste from very select towns and places. 73 currently, about 400,000 people. So over the course of Maine and then two little tiny towns in New Hampshire, we take the trash and or recycling from them. The top picture here, the brown one, that's our recycling building. That's where we used to bail trash. And then put that in the landfill Tetris style so we didn't waste the space. And now it is our recycling center. So we take your recycling. All of it is put in one bin. We call that single sort and then we sort it for you. Which you can think, well, how in the world do they do that? But we actually offer you tours. So if you want to come see all this in person after we're done talking about it, we offer tours Monday through Friday. And I really recommend coming in before March because we're actually going to do some construction that's going to get in the way of tours. So if you want to come on a tour, I'd love to see you and all the information that you need to... Right by the Portland airport. So very close by. So if you'd like to come and see us grab a brochure, you can email us at info at ecomain.org and that information is on the back of the brochures. The middle picture here, that's where the trash goes. So trash comes to a very separate building right next door and we actually burn the trash. We burn it at about 1800 degrees. It is very cleanly done because all the pollution is kept inside the building. It's treated as it goes through the facility in very specific ways and we'll actually talk about the specific ways in the second half of the presentation. And it's a really neat process. We're taking your trash from a lot, 100%, down to 10%, putting that in the landfill, which is the bottom picture, instead of putting 100% in the landfill. So we're saving space. We're not creating methane. We're creating electricity at the same time to power our facilities, to power the fun electric car that I get to drive to programs, and power up to 15,000 homes on top of that. So it's really fun. Did you have a question? You can also see it as you drive down 95, big old stacks sticking out on a cold day, just billowing out white steam. It's really fascinating. What size is your generator capacity? A generator capacity is 14 megawatts. Yeah, so quite large. So those are our three facilities. We own all of our facilities, so no one else can bring trash to our landfill unless it's our trash. So we're not having everyone and their dog come in with their trash. We're the only ones, so we're controlling it, and therefore making sure the only good stuff goes in there. So I like to show folks where we are. There's a more specific map right here. It's a little closer. So I'll pass this around. If you have a friend who lives in Freeport, and you're like, well, I wonder if they have eco-main or if they live in somewhere else. You can look on this one. So it's just a little more defined. But we're down here in Portland. And again, we're located in Portland. But then we take towns all the way to mid-coast, up to the Bangor area, over to the Freiburg area, and down just two over the border of New Hampshire down below there. I like to share our mission because it actually exactly sums up who we are and what we do. Eco-main is really focused on comprehensive long-term solid waste solutions. We're not thinking about two years from now. We're thinking about 20 years from now, 100 years from now. We're doing things in a safe and environmentally responsible and economically sound manner. So we actually win awards for our environmental safety and human safety at the facility. So we've got tons of trainings every year, multiple times a year. We're making sure everyone's wearing the right gear. We're making sure that we are recording accidents and talking about accidents quarterly. So a lot of great things are happening as far as the safety of the humans, which is very important to us. But then we're also keeping the environment safe, which is what the Sierra Club is all about too. So making sure that we're doing the right things and not emitting too much pollution or not letting the ash at the landfill seep out and contaminate the groundwater, et cetera. So we win awards because we're doing such a great job. And we're also a leader in raising public awareness of our sustainable waste management strategies. So I am one of the educators. We actually have two now and an intern and a communications director. So we're very focused on making sure you have the right information in front of you. We've got websites. We're on social media. We go to Common Ground Fair. We're in more local community events. So we're really trying to be everywhere so that you get the information that you need about what should and should not go in your recycling and shouldn't go in your trash can. So that brings us to wish cycling. So what should and should not go in your recycling is a lot of stuff. We'll talk about exactly what we take, your cardboard, your paper if you can rip it, we can take it even if it's a junk mail and it's got the envelope, the plastic envelope there or the window. We can take your metal containers, your foil. We can take your glass containers, but we don't want things like windows and we take all your rigid plastic containers. Folks tend to think that we also take your bowling balls and your chainsaws and your vacuum cleaner, hoses and your pillows and all kinds of crazy stuff. But that's what we call wish cycling. So that's a process of throwing something questionable. It's like, oh, well I want to recycle this so I'm going to put it in the recycling bin and then they'll deal with it. So you might see that's a problem when I say that we have the 400,000 customers that give us their material. So that's a lot of potential mistakes. We have humans that pick out what we call trash or contamination which is non-recyclables and there's only so much a human can do so it's really important to put the right things in the right bin. I have information out there so I really encourage you to grab one of our what we call do-don't lists. The green side is the good stuff. The red side is the bad stuff just like when you're driving. You know, stop and go. And we make it really, really easy to learn what is good and what is bad. We also have something really fun called the Recyclopedia. It's an online database and as of today we have 1,038 items in here. So you can go on either your smartphone, it's a free download, or just on the computer it's a regular website www.recyclomain.org. It's on all the information over here and you can type in chainsaw, gum, shoe, bowling ball, you know, diabetic insulin needle. There's so many things that you could look up that we don't want in the recycling bin. Some things you can give away, bowling ball, shoes, some things must go in the trash can and some things should go in the compost if you have the opportunity. So there's a lot of different things that you can do. Look it up in our Recyclopedia which is actually really fun. And there's a drag and drop game where you can sort things. Did anyone ever play Ecosaurus? That's actually why I am the way I am. So go home and look it up. It's the most fun game in the whole world. I played it when I was a kid. But it's basically dragging and dropping and putting things in the recycling bin, things in the trash can, things in the compost. It's a lot of fun. But back to wish cycling. Here are some things. There's a bale that's been consolidated in what we call our baler. It just makes the giant bales of material. And you might notice that there is a fire here and here. So those are from propane tanks. So propane tanks contain gas that is compressed. And when it is compressed again to make the bale, sometimes a fire occurs, which we're not really a fan of. So please don't give up your propane tanks. Don't give us your oxygen tanks. These are, again, wish-cycled. Someone taps on them and, oh, yeah, it's made of metal. So I can recycle that, right? But you've got to think of what's inside of it. So we can take your metal containers, like your soup can, corn can, bean cans, your aluminum cans if you don't want to redeem them. If you can redeem them, go for it. If you can't for some reason, we'll take them. Your aluminum foil and aluminum pipe plates and all that, we want all those. And then your pots and pans. We can take those, too. If they're still good and valuable, please give them away. If they're banged up, too rusted, broken in some way, we can take those and recycle them just fine. But we don't want things that have compressed gas in them. Fantastic question. So oil cans, we can take those. Hair spray, we can take those. Spray paint, we can take that. Cooking spray, we can take that. So all of that is not, say, dangerous. It's not explosive. For, say, your car oil, and really empty it out in your car and then put the top on and recycle it. This is a picture of a fire that happened in our tipping hall. So it looks like just a big open room, but right now it looks like a big smoky open room. So this was done, this was created by a lithium ion battery. So think like your computer battery or just something that says lithium ion on it. And the goo inside of it. And the goo, we need it to stay inside the battery because when it comes outside the battery like this it ignites when it reacts with oxygen. It's just a chemical reaction that just happens to happen. And that's not good, especially when we've got all this wonderful paper hanging out in a big old pile. And so it's not a good thing. So please keep your batteries out of your recycling bin, whether they're lithium ion, whether they're alkaline, no matter what kind of battery it is, it's a recycling bin. If it's like your regular remote control or flashlight battery, the regular cylindrical ones, those can go into trash can. They used to be dangerous, they used to have bad stuff in it, but now these days they're created better and safer. So those can go just in your trash can and we can deal with them at the Waste to Energy Facility. If they are a lithium ion one, like your computer one, things like that, take them at Home Depot, Lowe's and smaller hardware stores like ACE and all that. So there's lots of places to take those. And then finally, here's another dangerous wish-cycling one. Someone gave us a lovely white sheet. Well, it's not white anymore. So it got stuck in what we call our spinning stars. This helps sort out our paper. We have very specific equipment for very specific sorting of our materials that works really well unless we get something crazy in there. So if we get textiles like sheets or pants or things like that, if we get wood, it gets stuck. And the stars keep going. So what does that create? Friction and heat. And when there's a lot of wonderful paper right next to it, we have had fires. We don't want fires. So please again, give us the good stuff because it actually does matter. Exactly. They can cut it up, they can make rags. You can also donate your sheets and pillows and toys to animal shelters. And then the dogs will have a great time playing with them and the cats can, you know, snuggle up with a blanket, things like that. Fantastic question. So Styrofoam is a tricky one because it's a rigid plastic container labeled 1 through 7. It's a 6. That's the one that we don't take because Styrofoam is too light. We take 6, but Styrofoam is a whole different animal. So we just don't take Styrofoam because it's too lightweight and it's not something that is economically feasible to recycle. Styrofoam is New Jersey. So imagine just shipping a whole bunch of Styrofoam to New Jersey. You're wasting a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of fossil fuels. It's not worth it, unfortunately. So the only thing that we can do with that is not use it. I happen to be very excited one day when I found chicken in a number one plastic container. So there was chicken in there with plastic over it. That's what I bought. There are certain stores that have this. I believe this was either at Whole Foods or Hannaford's. So it's not like some little tiny boutique grocery store. More and more companies are doing this. So I think that we vote with our dollar and if we choose not to buy Styrofoam that's making a statement and it's a very helpful one. I know in Europe there were some stores where the folks were taking all the packaging off of their stuff and then taking their stuff home in bags and leaving the packaging at the store at the hay store, look at all this. Now you need to deal with it because you're making us deal with it so then the stores kind of said, oh, we should probably find some more better ways to sell our stuff instead of all the plastic. It's okay, yes. I like to bring Mr. Peanut Butter here because peanut butter, lotion, spaghetti sauce, there's going to be some residue and that's okay. Contamination is what we call the left in there. So if you left half, quarter, whatever bottle of lotion or peanut butter or mayonnaise or spaghetti sauce, that's a problem. But if you were to go to your spaghetti sauce jar or peanut butter jar and take the knife or the spoon and get out as much as you can and eat it because it's delicious and then put the top on, recycle that. Residue is not a problem, contamination is. Because when you think about it, you put through the dishwasher seven times. It's all going to the same place. It's all getting chopped up and cleaned and dried and melted and extruded and made into pellets to send off to the next place and it's all cleaned just as much as the others. So by you taking the time to really scrub it out, I think that's a waste of your time and your water. So clean it out as best as you're able to or empty it out, I should say, as best as you're able to. So we talked about kind of the dangerous items that are contamination. Let's talk about the kind of hum drum ones. So right here, this top picture it's hard to see because the lights aren't down but there's food waste smeared all over this area. There's a couch cushion right here. Right here there's a black bag and it's full of two different pairs of shoes an electrical cord and then some sort of seat that you would have in your car to make it a little bit more comfortable. Right here we've got a belt some sort of purple blouse dress otherwise lovely garment here and a bunch of leaves from someone's lawn because why not? Down here we've got the back of some sort of electrical thing potentially a VHS player or a computer monitor and then a jacket right here you can see a sleeve poking out and of course there's plastic wrap and all kinds of other squishy plastic things. Those aren't super dangerous but they're also not what we want. We want your paper your cardboard your metal containers foil, pots and pans your rigid plastic containers labeled one through seven and we want your glass containers. We don't want your balloons we don't want your shoes we don't want your pants we don't want your leaves we don't want your belts, your car seats, all kinds of stuff. So our rules are very finite and very straightforward so that you know what we want and what we don't want and there's not a lot of room for oh well I wonder if they take bowling balls because it's sort of plastic well it's not a container it doesn't have a label one through seven on it so we make the information very very clear we make the recyclopedia of that database so if you want to find the answer you can find it at your fingertips you can always pick up the phone and call me too because that's actually my favorite part of the job we're the nonprofit waste management companies in the whole country and we're the only one in Maine the only one in the region we're very proud of that so we don't bring trash to the facility but we process once it's at our facility so all a town has to do is say hey guys I'm looking for a new program and then we submit a bid and then the town picks us if they want us lots of towns do pick us other towns don't based on logistics or maybe the other company's price is like here a little bit more but we're definitely doing the right thing and our goal is to recycle as much as possible and do the right thing with the trash as much as possible not to make all the money some places most places don't have what we call the waste energy facility where it's burned there's only 77 of those in the entire country there's I think hundreds in Europe so they're way smaller than us because they don't have a lot of room the United States has a lot of room now so they don't they still do the landfill thing landfilling is also cheaper so a lot of towns choose to landfill because it's cheaper now one story I like to share is there was a town back in the 30's that dug out a lot of rock and made a quarry so then they had this huge wonderful empty place and they thought I know what I'm going to put in here and they put trash in there they didn't do it the right way they didn't take the precautions for the future they didn't think they just thought ooh big empty hole stuff in there so now they're paying at least $130,000 per year just to pump out the water so it doesn't pollute everything else around it so we need to think about the future and that's what we do we're making sure that we're doing a great job with that one more thing some places are no longer accepting say certain plastics because the plastics market is not very good right now for a lot of places Eco mains still sends their plastic inside the country a lot of places send it out to China where they did China then closed their borders because we were sending them too much junk so think back to the contamination there was too much contamination in the bins sorry in the bales that we were sending them so they said no more our plastic stays in the country so we never had that problem but our paper was going out of the country so we are having some interesting things happening with paper but we're still recycling to Vietnam or Thailand or Indonesia India so there are definitely places we're sending it but back to the plastics some towns are no longer accepting say anything but number one and number two because those are the higher value ones we're still doing we're still taking number one through seven so that sets us apart because again we're focused on the recycling we're not focused on the money aspect of it great question great question so that's this part so consider reusing plastic films or plastic bags or taking them to grocery stores so plasticfilmrecycling.org might be your new best friend if you have trouble remembering it pick up one of these guys it's on the back at the bottom of the milk jug plasticfilmrecycling.org type in your zip code on this website no matter where you are here, Montana, New Mexico wherever you go and it will come up with a whole list of stores nearby you where you can take those films things like your pulling spring wrapping the toilet paper wrapping the paper towel wrapping the bread bags the produce bags the grocery bags, zip block bags, newspaper bags and then also your bubble wrap and your air pockets it's got a whole long list of that on the website too so you don't have to remember that either but when you take them to grocery stores here like Shaw's, Walmart Target, Hannaford's, Whole Foods Bed Bath Beyond then they send it to the next place where they have special equipment we have special equipment for our stuff they have special equipment for the bags and it's made into things like treks decking so this is deck for your backyard made out of plastic bags and plastic films and sawdust so that gives it a little more body and strength so that decking is not eaten by termites or other creatures you don't need to restain it you don't need to stand it you don't need to worry about the sun on it or all day so it's a really fascinating product yes it costs a little bit more but think about having to redo your deck every ten years or so versus this one product that's going to be there basically forever because as we know plastic doesn't really break down that much so it's a great product so what they do is they take it from the grocery stores send it to the next place it's cleaned and then it's turned into something new and wonderful not things like this so it needs to be not crinkly but stretchy and you'll become a pro at this you'll like listen to it and you'll say ooh that's good or ooh that's bad I've been teaching my husband and there's a list online so you don't need to rely on your hearing but there is a list online they don't want things like your freezer bag like think of blueberries in a freezer bag because it's got special lining in there that keeps the food safe from the frigid cold of your freezer so there are some good things so just adhere to the list that's on plasticfilmrecycling.org and you'll be a-okay correct this is trash only unless you wanted to reuse it for something else I happen to put my kitty litter in here and then put it in my trash can so if you don't reuse it it is only trash you might think oh but it's metal look it's silver it's plastic plastic plastic it is just so happens to be a silver color so trash only same thing with things like your coffee bags you might think oh it looks medley I'm going to put it in my recycling bin but it is plastic that looks like metal so this is trash only probably smells great though exactly and I used to work for Portland water district we have actually some of the cleanest water in the country so drink out of your tap because it's delicious so going back to this think about the safety aspect so we've got our humans that work in our facility and what they're in right now there's a human here and you can see the shoes up there they're in our spinning rubber stars which look exactly like this there's 300 of them and this is what you'll see later is separating out the paper from everything else so as these are turning you might guess that things like this get stuck in there along with the computer cords and the dog run leash run and the electrical cords and medical tubing that we inexplicably get and so many other things so this is what the stars look like when they're stopped and there's a whole bunch of junk in there you should only see black but instead you see lots of lovely colors so the humans have to climb in and get all that stuff out by hand there's no machine that can do this for us they put it in a pile and then think back to that picture when we were talking about recycling that was a forklift with two giant bales and a junk that we bailed and now we're taking over to the trash building so this stuff gets stuck in our building and we want to make sure that we don't get it in the first place which is why we have all the lists and all the education so give us the good stuff not the bad stuff and our guys have to go into the machines a lot less because this cuts down on productivity it cuts down on our time that we should be sorting everything because it just it takes a lot of time fantastic question so the plastic bags the only plastic bag that we will ever accept is a clear plastic one with your shredded paper in it so that's perfect I'll point out in the process of what happens to it but say the truck comes and it dumps out the plastic or it dumps out everything and there's the clear plastic bags well that will get shoved up onto the belt it will go through and in this room this white room where humans are sorting things I'll see ooh shredded paper throw it downstairs with the cardboard station his job is to pull out anything not cardboard with this big hook that includes those shredded bags those bags with shredded paper in it he brings it over to the paper bale which is right next to him the paper baler and he opens it up and he throws that bag in with the trash and the paper goes with the paper the bag goes with the trash and then he goes back to his cardboard job we don't want it without a bag because it's confetti it goes everywhere because think about the star spinning you'll see the movie of it in just a couple minutes it just it's everywhere so please put it in something whether it's a paper bag but a plastic a clear plastic bag is really what we want because then we can see it we can say ok there's paper empty it done oh yeah office paper junk mail post-its receipts all those can go in yeah magazines are totally fine so it's shiny not a problem so the rule is if I can rip it so I can rip it I can put it in if I can't rip it that means it's like plastic and that's more plastic than paper so definitely give us ripable paper you don't need to rip everything that goes in there you're gonna learn once you keep putting things in there wrapping paper we get a lot of questions on is wrapping paper recyclable well again if you can rip it we can take it if it's foil on one side and paper on the other that's not something we want because we don't want two materials stuck together so just think about that next season if you put out your aluminum cans like this guy or this guy then we just sell this off by the bail so whatever weight that is you know that's what we get for it it's not like ooh there's like three thousand five cent things in here so we get that much money back so we sell it off by that if you wanted to donate it to someone there are places that you can say hey I've got I've got three bags of deposit bottles I'm on the board of a non-profit of reusable resources so sometimes I post and say hey does anyone have bottles that they want to donate to a charity so you know you could leave them outside of your recycling bin at your house and someone will come by and pick those up and someone does that on my street so there are definitely ways to donate them even if you don't want to recycle them yourself but nobody's getting that deposit if you give them to us so broken glass in trash we will not take it we don't want it in your recycling yes because you got to think about the safety aspect if you were all putting your broken glass in the recycling bin well remember there's humans in there they do have gloves on they do have hard hats and safety glasses on but things could still fly out and hurt someone or they could reach for something and it could cut them so we got to think about the safety aspect broken glass is trash regular glass is recycle we get diapers we get litter we get dog poo in the recycling no thank you health hazard also not recyclable sorry we can't do anything with that so trash trash always trash with paper market being the way it is I love composting so if you have the ability honestly you can't probably can't compost every piece of paper that you have at your home because there's just so much of it but if you've got little pieces here and there definitely you can compost those for sure so looking at this picture this is a perfect single sort load so this is a truck coming and backing off and it's got all the paper plastic metal glass and cardboard that we want that's what we want to get this is what we're getting so we're getting this from Portland we're getting this from Falmouth we're getting this from Scarborough we're getting this from Glenburn we're getting it from Bridgeton we're getting it from literally everywhere maybe not Bridgeton because they are watching it like a hawk they're amazing but we're getting these bags we don't want anything in bags so zero judgment don't tell me about it but if you put your recycling in a bag at home stub it no more you put it in your bin bigger small loose except for your clear plastic bag with shredded paper that's the one and only exception okay we want it in there loose because think about black bags full of recycling our guys don't have time to rip every bag open and make sure it's safe and then move on to the next one and the next one and the next one and plus honestly we've opened enough bad bags full of kitty litter full of dirty shoes full of leaves that we don't actually open black bags anymore it's straight to the trash so moving forward if anyone no judgment always put your stuff in loose no bags okay so we don't want bags because it's a really big mess and what do we throw out all the time we're throwing away recycling we're throwing away food we're throwing away trash and we're throwing away reusable stuff I can't tell you how many reusable perfectly good items that I've seen pull out of the recycling bin we have to put them in the trash they go to our building to be burned because maybe they've been touching someone else's dog poo maybe they were thrown out because they were contaminated with baby explosions you know anything we don't know what happened to that thing so that perfectly good pair of shoes that I saw pulled out last week was trash but it could have gone to someone else someone else could have worn those shoes someone else could have played with that ball someone could have used the chainsaw it just needed a little bit of work I got a lawnmower from a swap shop it was broken but all it needed is like 10 minutes worth of work and now it works perfectly so things that you want to throw away try and give them away if you can please don't automatically say recycling bin or trash can if they're still usable give them away because reusable stuff you might not want it but someone else definitely will those are the things typically that we're throwing out but can we reduce and reuse things before we have to throw them away so I've got metal straws over here if you'd like to take one please do that you never again have to use a regular straw I also love to teach the students I go see in the schools of I'll have a water no straw please because they don't think oh I have the power to refuse a straw so you don't need a straw unless you actually need a straw and if you need a straw go for it but if you don't need a straw consider a metal straw or no thank you I don't need a straw really fun water bottles make it your own I've got some of my favorites up here my water bottles and or hot chocolate mugs and or smoothie mugs etc I make them fun because I put stickers on them from traveling or just something that I love and then it makes me want to bring it around I also put a special challenge on myself of I don't get a coffee or a hot chocolate or smoothie unless I bring my own mug I don't go to the grocery store unless I bring my own bags those are challenges that I put on myself and that way I use less which makes me really happy so put a challenge on yourself if you'd like because those plastic bags definitely add up and then these two down here just for fun that's a chair made out of tennis balls so eventually tennis balls you can't play tennis with them anymore because they get too worn make a chair out of it put them on the bottom of your chairs at home and then avoid the scratches on your floor give them to your dog etc so there's a lot of ways to reuse fun things like that we made a really fun video for the holidays it's basically use this not that or a holiday challenge you can go on YouTube and look for it I won't play it tonight for time and sound but go on YouTube channel and we've got four videos like this with the red background there's a longer one for six holiday tips that we did I think two years ago or last year in South Portland we've got other commercials on there for food waste we've got other commercials on there for recycling so our YouTube channel is actually really fun so go check that out if you'd like to because you can make a difference I can make a difference if we do the right thing with our stuff so I like to show this picture because this is all about recycling now the top line here this is just putting things in the trash so where does paper come from trees so I need paper I'm going to go cut down some trees put them on a truck recycle or I'm sorry make them into paper and then I'm not going to recycle them I'm going to put it in the trash truck picks it up landfill I need more paper where do I go back to the trees the landfill sits there forever I need more paper where do I go so it's a very linear system nothing is being replenished it's all being taken and taken and taken away but if you go down to the bottom one we've got fewer trees being cut down if we're recycling we take them on a truck we make paper we use it we recycle it truck picks it up recycles it makes it into something new we recycle it over and over and over unless because we're recycling it we've got all this beautiful raw material that we can make a new box a new piece of paper a new plastic jug a new metal thing out of we don't need to constantly go out into nature and bring the raw materials back and use that we've got what we need let's recycle it and use it massive amounts of studies out there it's way worse to get the raw material than it is to just recycle and it does not break down so you can recycle that can into a can into a can for longer than I can actually say that over and over and of course it all starts with you we want your cardboard paper of all shapes, sizes, colors types your metal containers and foil and things even your tops of your salsa jar we want those too we want your glass we want your plastic containers that are rigid or hard so when I say rigid or hard I can squeeze this a lot but I cannot say squish it down in my hand so this is not rigid or hard it does not keep its shape whereas a water bottle a milk jug any sort of plastic over here will so rigid or hard doesn't mean rock hard doesn't even mean super hard but it means it's a container of some kind and I can tell oh that held lotion or chicken breasts or cereal or fruit cup or something like that so that's the difference yes so plastic we want to say on the plastic so plastic and plastic stay together metal and glass like say your curry jar or spaghetti sauce jar or salsa jar you can either leave those on together and then the metal will go through again and be picked up by a magnet which we'll show you in a minute or you can separate them your choice so plastic stays on plastic because say you just recycled this guy that's going to fall through our cracks it's not going to get recycled but if you keep it on it gets recycled even though it's a different color or different type ok so plastic on plastic metal on glass or off they are what we call plasticized some places will take them some places will not ecomain takes them do we have portland residents anybody beyond portland where are we ooo interesting so canabunk is not an ecomain community your cups do not go in the recycling bin because kasella is your provider and they will not take them so there's an example of a different company taking something different than us we take them so some companies take more than others some companies take less than others where are there others besides portland and canabunk south portland yes report yes so anyway it all starts with you you put it out on the curb it comes to us right by the airport again trucks back up beep beep beep the blue one there dumps out its contents and then goes off to collect something else our front loader will shove it up onto the conveyor belt and it will go through the system right there and it looks kind of like this so it pushes it up onto the conveyor belt you can't see everything moving because it takes things very slowly and therefore we process things at a slow but actually not too slow but an even amount so if we just piles and piles and piles of stuff going past the people there's no way they can sort it so it goes through a little bit at a time goes through this giant thing here this house looking thing called a drum feeder it goes through that and it just oh so slowly turns and stuff comes out the other side so say cardboard box had gotten like kind of squished around a plastic thing those are now separated so it's easier for us to separate so it's not breaking anything it's just going slowly and helping to pull things apart and making it into a thin layer so then it goes up the hill right here there's a human standing right here and it's his job to take out anything large or dangerous so say your black plastic bags your propane tanks your large pieces of metal helium tanks oxygen tanks those types of things he takes them out he puts them in bins right next to them and then the stuff keeps going and the first real thing to be separated is the cardboard so material kind of falls down into this trough and all along here there are axles with spinning stars kind of like this there they are the black things spinning kind of like this except instead of being this size they're about this size so I don't carry one around so they're helping the large and light cardboard go up and over glass metal plastic falls down through so you've got a first separation like that only based on the size and weight of the material you might see some stuff stuck in there that's because some stuff gets stuck on our axles so we don't want those tanglers or things that could get stuck so electrical cord plastic wrap jeans shower curtains bed sheets you name it we get it and eventually we have to cut it off there's a American flag it's actually like party flags like 4th of July type style not recyclable reusable sure yeah so the next part is the cardboard was sorted first now the paper is being sorted this are 300 of these so I'll pass this around so you can kind of feel what it's like on an axle and they're on two hills and this is just pushing the paper up and over paper goes back through to go downstairs and be bailed glass metal plastic keeps on going so they're sorted in a minute you're seeing this is like the second part of it down here just making sure the paper is pushed up and over onto this belt going back through the room where the humans are sorting out the trash I'm going to say that again the humans are sorting out the trash so if we put trash in our recycling bin it's a humans job to take it out whether it's a diaper a chainsaw a giant piece of metal a black trash bag and these are our tanglers the color is off it's not right but you if you were looking at my computer you'd see every color of the rainbow you should only see black so what happens then is the humans then stop the machine and lock it when it gets like this to mix up and the guys have to cut out everything with the pictures that I showed you earlier of the big piles and then take it over to the trash building and then we burn it so in the first place these bags should have gone should have been reused they should have gone to the grocery stores the electrical cords should have been taken to good will because they can actually strip them of copper like your Christmas lights if anyone's ever put Christmas lights in the recycling bin or trash bin even don't do it ever again because take them to good will whether they're working or not they can recycle them the very proper way the right way in the right machine or the right equipment the right people to do it fun fact so up next we've got the metals being taken out so things like this your soup can corn can bean can anything magnetizable your salsa jar tops these are grabbed by a magnet brought over here and thrown in a bin so grabbed thrown grabbed thrown grab thrown the whole time anything that can be grabbed with a magnet will be grabbed with a magnet so grabs it and throws it in a bin over here and this is anything with steel or tin in it because you can connect just say your regular refrigerator type magnet to this whereas your aluminum is actually kind of ricocheted away it is a opposite force instead of a grabbing force because aluminum is will not attract to a regular like refrigerator type magnet go try it at home if you don't believe me it's a lot of fun this is a reverse any current magnet so instead of grabbing it and throwing it actually repels it so anything aluminum is going up and over and anything else is falling down and going this way so it's kind of a gravity and opposite scheme this might be the most boring slide that I show you because there's no fun video but glass we can't show you a video of it because it's inside this room and we're breaking it with these metal stars so instead of rubber stars we've got metal stars the metal is actually breaking the glass the glass is falling through it's getting crushed in such a way that you could touch it without getting cut it wouldn't cut up your hand and then that gets put into a giant bin which when that bin is full it goes to the landfill three miles away and it sits there next to the landfill not in the landfill and then Shaw Brothers comes to pick it up to do a construction project for drainage work or foundation work we use it to fix our potholes at the landfill the countertop companies that I mentioned earlier could come by and pick it up and clean it it's not super clean but it's a usable valuable product that we give away for free unfortunately there's no market for glass right now there hasn't been for a while so we can't give it away to make it into glass we can't even of course sell it to make it into glass so it's reused and if you think about reused recycle it's actually better than recycling so we're doing a good thing with it so the last thing that we sorted out we sorted out the plastic so number one through seven are sorted different ways this is sorting out your number one like these guys so it's your Gatorade bottles, your spinach containers your blueberry containers, grape tomato containers pull and spring bottles if you don't redeem them if you do go for it of course your chicken containers too so what this machine is doing is it's looking down on all the material that's going under it can only see number one everything else it's blind to it so when everything is going underneath it in a nanosecond it sees it, follows it sends a puff of air to blow on it and send it up and over just a little bit and just like the aluminum everything else is falling down and going a separate way video to show you this machine has a 96-ish percent accuracy rating and does the work of six humans sorting so we're looking kind of away from the machine we're going to turn around and look at it in a second you can hear the puffs of air yes so anything flying up anybody see anything flying up there's things were falling down so that separation number one's number two three four five six and seven so humans then sort the rest of it your milk jugs, your clearish ones your colored jugs these are both number two go in two different containers because we get two different prices for that your milk jugs are around $800 per ton your number two colored jugs like your laundry detergent jugs detergent jugs are more like I can't remember exactly but I think for $600 I know it's a huge difference but I can't remember right now unfortunately and then number three through seven is everything else from your yogurt containers your ketchup bottles, other things and they're all together number three, number four, number five, number six, number seven all together even these guys so again they might look waxy no wax, plasticized make sure they're empty, drink it up, recycle it caps can stay on or you can take them off and put them in the trash yep alright so the plastics are sorted finally and then here's just kind of a look at the other side of that there's the bins that everything goes into so there's a bin for aluminum, a bin for steel and tin a bin for number one plastic, a bin for number two colored a bin for number two natural etc when those bins are full ooh I'll finish that sentence when those bins are full then they are kind of open with a garage door opener when the bale are downstairs is ready to bale them goes on a conveyor belt and downstairs and I put this really helpful slide in because this is very clear what we want and what we don't want rigid plastic containers, jugs, tubs, jars, etc are what we want things like your forks, your hangers, your CDs your styrofoam the thing that your tape comes in, our nose a couple differences here, we will take your pots, your cups your oil containers these containers and these containers and this but things like your forks, your CDs your hangers are things that we don't want so here is that conveyor belt this is the sides of those containers the cardboard is on this side, it gets pushed in goes downstairs on the conveyor belt whereas these are the plastic and metal ones so they kind of click a button when they say hey downstairs we got a full metal of or full container of aluminum are you ready, yes go for it or no wait two minutes and we'll call you back so around two thousand pound bale are what we are creating they are created raffed with wire, pushed out another one is created, raffed with wire, pushed out etc etc all day long the cardboard gets put with the cardboard the metal gets put with the metal cardboard tends to go to New York or Massachusetts metals, excuse me, tend to go to Pennsylvania plastics tend to go to Alabama or Michigan glass again stays right there nearby three miles away and paper is the only thing that goes overseas he is turning this over and over and over there is stuff that should not be in there so this is a cardboard bale he is looking for non-fiber material so if there is paper in there there is a magazine in there, not a problem but if there is a milk jug, if there is plastic bags if there is styrofoam, if there is a pillow in there he is taking it out so there he is taking it out by hand he has got the tools, he has got the gloves he has got the safety equipment and it is still difficult yes, recycle them do I understand they are not they are recycled they are recyclable, you can take off the top but most of those they do have tops so you can take off the little top and throw that away if you would like, if you want to keep it on but we want those, recycle them yes, the same is true for orange juice containers soy milk containers, soup in a box wine in a box, we want all those in the recycling bin so finally with the recycling metal turns into metal paper turns into paper paper is not going to turn into plastic and metal is not going to turn into glass so they are going to turn into very fun interesting things does anyone recognize this playground down here you guys need to spend more time at the beach this is Willard Beach in South Portland, you got it bring your dog to the beach, it is a super fun time this whole playground was made out of milk jug type containers your soup can type containers and your aluminum can type containers so if the people of the past did not recycle the children and the adults of the future would not have this wonderful playground to play on so, go there it is an interesting subject I think so I put this one in here just because it is super fascinating this will be up online, I know it is super small and we are not going to spend too much time on it but this just shows you what each type of plastic examples of it are and then what they could turn into so for example, number one it is P-E-T or polyethylene pterifalates try saying that five times fast so it could be things like your soda and water bottles your cups, your jars, your trays, your clamshells like you know tomato clamshells things they could turn into are things like clothing carpet, more clamshells and more soda and more water bottles so it is just a fun little picture to show what it is and what it could be when it is recycled so this will be up online later so we definitely want you to recycle but we want you to do it right because this is Portland information so there is curbside and then there are things called silver balls do we all know what those are giant containers that you could drop your stuff into if you don't have curbside so these are just a mix of all those and some I like to show this because it has got a good example so we have a fan a window fan we have wood stakes we have styrofoam, we have cellophane we have a large cushion we have a drawer we have 30 plus bags in one container we have empty mulch bags, a metal office chair a garden hose and it goes on and on we are looking at the loads that come in when they are on the floor we are writing down what is wrong with this picture we are then handing that to someone and it gets recorded so we have information on every single load that comes to us into the recycling building so when in doubt, look it up if you can, give it away that box of Christmas decor would have made someone else very happy I am sure, but it came to us and then we burned it so make sure you are reducing, reusing recycling and composting but make sure you are doing it the right way so how can you help, how can we help there is in school tours we can come to you, you can come to us we can come to your business, come to your school come to your library, come anywhere you like it is free we have open house in September we can come to transfer stations and community events so if you know of events that are coming up say hey, I wonder if EcoMain wants to come give me a call or an email, we will be there we have information out around town we have information on silver bullets information here, online anywhere, able for you to find it EcoMain.org super easy to remember that recyclopedia, this is just what it looks like so if you want to download it on your smart phone you can even do it right now, I won't judge you for having your phone out it is a free download you can have the answers at your fingertips and of course be right in every recycling argument ever it is hard to see but there is a search bar right here you type in gum or shoes or duct tape or bowling ball or chainsaw there is 1038 items in there so find us on social media YouTube, Instagram, Facebook all the fun things we have post fun things interesting things like in the background super hard to see but over here there is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 bottles that I pulled out of a silver bullet that have a lot of liquid in them think back to the is that machine going to work if it has got liquid in it no, so we actually would have to take that out of its trash because unfortunately no one is going to stand there and go for you so empty stuff for sure we have a big X over Christmas lights going into the recycling bin and we put a post hey take these to goodwill, please, please, please not in our recycling bin because this is what happens when you put stuff in the trash can we burn it so we ask you to reduce, reuse, recycle compost as much as you can so that we don't have to burn it and this is the general process it comes to us, trash is burned it turned into ash and it comes to the landfill it stays there forever and ever we do happen to take out any metal that can be magnetized with a giant, giant drum magnet so that's really cool so say you threw away a mattress with springs in it we would take out the springs on the back end after it's all burned so silver lining, yay metals taken out but if you say put your plastic or your cardboard, your favorite pillow, whatever in the trash it's gone if you wanted to be gung-ho and cut this part off you can recycle that part in the grocery store but if you don't want to do that, this is not you could make this into a suet feeder outside, you know put suet in there tie it to a tree, ta-da birds, get a snack so you can reuse it, you cannot recycle it it's trash great question