Eneco

Municipal Recycling Programs

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Municipalities can and should promote recycling in eco-friendly programs.

Did you know that typically up to a third, if not one half of the contents of your garbage bag ends up being food type waste? One of the best ways of reducing the amount of garbage being picked up at roadside is to teach people how to set up in home, non-smelly digestor composters that turn food waste into excellent soil mix. The systems are simple. A little education and a few incentives could reduce curb side pick up without adding any trucks to the collection system! Another well-proven system is to install bottle and container refund machines at local supermarkets. This encourages people to bring back their bottles and containers in their own vehicles without making a extra trip thus saving significantly the impact of trucking waste. These are practical ways to have the local community chip in.

Every EnEco plant includes an education centre designed to promote these and other practical ways to reduce the impact we have on our environment.

Some wastes cannot so easily be handled and must be disposed of. For instance, if someone demolishes a house, what can be done with that? What about an animal infected with some horrible virus? Clinical waste can contain blood and other potentially infectious elements: how should that be handled? Big cities often have programs for all these things, but what about smaller communities? EnEco is able to provide many good practical approaches to these very real problems in the process of designing a community system.

Composting:

Composting is nature's process of recycling decomposed organic materials into a rich soil known as compost. Anything that was once living will decompose. Yard and food waste make up 30% of the waste stream. Composting your kitchen and yard trimmings helps divert that waste from the landfill, waterways and water treatment facilities.

Source Separation:

Source separating various wastes such as paper, plastics, metal, glass, newsprint etc. can be done at the home or business. It can take on many different levels of commitment and many different levels of support from the community. The community can offer education and provide systems to send or drop off your waste voluntarily or it can go farther and actually legislate mandatory recycling of certain wastes.

Special Waste:

Many types of businesses generate hazardous waste. Some are small areas that may be located in a community. For example, dry cleaners, automobile repair shops, hospitals, exterminators, and photo processing centers all generate hazardous waste. Some hazardous waste generators are larger companies like chemical manufacturers, electroplating companies, and oil refineries.

Hazardous waste has the potential to cause, or significantly contribute to an increase in mortality or an increase in serious irreversible, or incapaitating reversible illness; or pose a substantial potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly treated, stored, transported, or disposed of, or otherwise managed.

Commercial Demolitions:

In North America, it is estimated that as a much as 40% of raw materials consumed are used in construction. When building stock turns over, all of these materials become waste.  The Commercial Demolition waste stream is enormous: about 130 million tons per year in the US, or about 25% of all solid waste that is discarded in North Amercia. However, there is hardly a single waste material from a job site that cannot be recycled.   In almost all cases, the costs of recycling is lower than the cost of throwing materials away.