they are amongst us??

[Toppie4x4]

We moved into nice new offices with no dustbins at our desks anymore, only dedicated recycle bins, see pic. Yesterday the lady come to empty the bins.................she trough all the items off all three bins into ONE black plastic bag

[Thabogrobler]

Eerste wereld reels in 'n Derde wereld land!

[the BuTch3R]

....see the sticker on the door

"SIMPLICITY".....you're doing it wrong

[Toppie4x4]

yip we are doing it wrong

[ChrisF]

We are busy with some interesting projects at the moment.

Clearly I am restricted in what I may talk about .....


Let's just say the "refuse" game is CHANGING !! and it is changing FAST.



From the time your refuse leave your bin at home, until it finally arrive at a landfill site some 90% of your refuse is recycled in some way or another.


It is already at the point where some specialist firms are BUYING refuse from large consumers ....



now back to the "one bag" - it all depends on your nearest recycling plant. Some only separate plastic/paper/metal/other. Then you get sites that set about separating this into MANY different types of paper/plastic/metal, from where it could go to specific sites for dedicated and optimized recycling.

this is a classic site where the "one-bag" would go - here plastic/paper/metal is sorted into various specialised bales -

IMG_6518 (Small).jpg (95.22 KiB) Viewed 1768 times

these sites CANT handle organic waste or other "non-recyclables" !

We are now busy with a site that CAN handle any waste - here it is separated into the primary groups only. Simply not enough space on this one site to then get into specialized sub-sorting .....


so why three recycling bins when they will only pick up "one bag" - people are less likely to dump non-recyclables into these three bins.



Hopefully I may be in a position in 12 months to tell more about the state of the art processes in this industry .....

I can say that before long people WILL start to fight about who owns your waste ..... how times change ....

[Toppie4x4]

yes there is money to be made in refuse ...................right under our noses all the time

[pietpetoors]

There more money there is to be made from refuse the cleaner the streets will be. Do you see any copper and steel laying around?
Once attended a talk where some recycling fundi was speaking and he said that their goal is to make plastic and paper more valuable because then recycling will automatically happen.

so why three recycling bins when they will only pick up "one bag" - people are less likely to dump non-recyclables into these three bins.

Chris I am in 110% agreement on this one. In Langebaan the municipality also have three large containers (of which the content at some stage were dumped at the normal dumping grounds) and then one of the trailer renting companies in conjunction with the tourism guys has a trailer which they park opposite the Spar every Wednesday. You can then dump your recycling material on the trailer.
Myself rather dump it on the trailer because it is all in one bag, paper and plastic and just much less of a hassle.

For those who do not recycle yet, you will be amazed if you see how little waste your house actually generate if you take the paper and plastic out.
Some weeks our dustbin only have one small Checkers bag in it, while the recycle stuff is one or sometimes more than one blag bag full.
So if everybody recycle, we can decrease the size of dumping size ten fold.

A friend of mine is an engineer and he once showed me a study where they designed a dumping site with zero waste, even your organic waste is converted to fertilizer.

[the BuTch3R]

yes there is money to be made in refuse ...................right under our noses all the time

Nobody knows that better than the homeless. Here on a Monday morning they parade the streets with their trolleys and carts "recycling" the waste from our municipal bins.....leaving a trail of litter behind them :evil:
Every Monday afternoon, without fail, I am outside with a broom, sweeping up the unwanted refuse that somehow accumulates in my driveway.


I can only imagine the chaos if the value of refuse where to increase...

[pietpetoors]

That is the least of our problems. If the value of waste increase they will pick up whatever falls.

What worries me is if they steal a bread just to sell the bag.

[ChrisF]

A friend of mine is an engineer and he once showed me a study where they designed a dumping site with zero waste, even your organic waste is converted to fertilizer.

Recycling companies now BUY the waste from large food outlets ....

The organics gets pulped, then all the juice gets squeezed out and goes to digesters. The dry left overs are ready to become compost. From the digesters Methane and CO2 gas is harvested. The methane could be used on-site to generate power, or it could be sold to any of the gas companies.

NONE of the organic waste goes to dump sites - at least, none should.

[Toppie4x4]

should be easy to implement something in gated communities....................mmmmmmm let me think??

[ChrisF]

should be easy to implement something in gated communities....................mmmmmmm let me think??

mark my words - in the next 10 years the gated communities will be fighting municipalities for the right to SELL their refuse directly to recycling companies .....


I am but one service provider to these companies ... so I get to sit back and LISTEN at how this industry is evolving .... MOST interesting .....