(00:00:00) Danielson in st. Paul Bob Potter is on assignment and we welcome to the studio Kathy Berg moger who is an recycling expert senior environmental planner, I guess is the official title with the Minnesota Pollution Control agency. We welcome to the studio for what we hope will be a number of questions from listeners in about 25 minutes before that. We're going to hear the speech of Bill wrath G, which was given last fall at a conference that you helped organize regarding recycling isn't (00:00:27) right, right. The national recycling Coalition is a National Organization of recycling interests and they came to st. Paul had the largest conference ever with 1,500 participants. And Bill rachie was one of our featured speakers. He's an anthropologist who people are quite interested in what he's doing because not too many of us are willing to dig through our garbage and find out what's what's in there. He looks at what happens to garbage in the landfills and what types of things we find in our landfills and tries to draw conclusions about our habits. (00:01:00) From that and this is related obviously to your interest recycling. This is a somewhat timely discussion in the sense that state lawmakers have in front of them. Now a number of items pertaining to statutes that are regulations that might be a passed by the legislature pertaining to recycling in Minnesota and will speak to that when we come back to you in about 25 minutes after we hear from Bill wrath G wrath G is an archaeologist at the University of Arizona at Tucson. And when he spoke in September the title of his talk was what our landfills say about us and he spoke at the conference that Kathy Berg moger helped organized along with other. So let's hear now the comments of archaeologists Bill wrath. Gee I'm (00:01:43) very pleased to be here today because I'm one of the few people here. I think it was not a recycler and a big sense. I recycle my aluminum cans and I recycle my newspapers and then recycle a few other things, but that's not my general line of work. I was trained as an archaeologist, which means I was trained to learn about old societies by looking at ancient garbage. And a few years ago in 1973. We started Lou projet do garbage the garbage project at the University of Arizona where the idea was to see what we could learn that was useful about ourselves by looking at Fresh garbage. And what I'd like to do today is talk to you a little bit about the latest thing we've gotten into and that's digging up old landfills. Just the way an archaeologist would dig tell in the near East one of the big mounds in the southern us. We've been studying fresh garbage mainly since 1973. We've been looking at Food waste. We've been looking at nutrition and all the difference between what people say they eat and what they actually eat. I'm sure you know all know about this is somebody said you have a good time last night. What did you do depending on how young you are and whether you want to be macho or conservative what you actually did make a change in terms of what you say? But that's not the only problem see the other problem is even if you want to tell somebody you may not be able to remember. And you may not be able to tell for example how many ounces of lettuce you ate in the salad today? Who knows that was a big serving a little serving and that varies by person. So when you're dealing with major organizations like the National Cancer Institute the US Department of Agriculture the Heart Association when they're trying to figure out what the relationship is between diet and disease they have a lot of trouble getting people to honestly admit what they eat. So we look at garbage and we get the packaging and the food debris and we can give them an alternative View. We've looked at recycling we've looked at who recycles and who doesn't and what kinds of patterns there are in it. And we've looked at hazardous waste and household refuse looked at unused drain opener and nail polish and nasty things like that, but about two years ago now. I talked to a bunch of my colleagues and I said well, what do you think? What do you think about this looking at modern society the way an archaeologist would and they said well Bill what you're doing is nice nutrition and it's nice Solid Waste Management and it's nice this and that but it's not archeology. There's no dirt plenty of garbage. No dirt. I said, okay. What the heck? Let's get some dirt into this. I'll dig up some old landfills. We know what was thrown away. We got to dig up the old landfills and see what's happening to it. See what it what the real mix is there. So in 1987 in the summer, we dug three landfills one in Tucson one in the Bay area of California and one in the western suburbs of Chicago. And all the garbage and these landfills had been placed in the ground between 1977 and 1985. And the first thing we had to face was how do you dig it up and I decided against camel hair brushes and dental picks say I know I know what I'm doing started out with a backhoe extended arm backhoe. It took us a while to get the guy who is using it to dig straight trench walls. See that's where you're really evaluated and Archaeology is how straight the sides of your trench are but we got them to do that and we found even with his extended arm the farthest he could get down was 30 feet. And that's the depth of one lift one cell. So we got 1985 garbage at the top and we got 1985 garbage at the bottom that didn't do so we decided to go to a bucket auger. And that was one of the great machines that God help man invent. It looks like an oil rig. It's got a big bucket on the end of it. It's about three and a half four feet in diameter and it spins around it has teeth on it looks sort of like a cheese scraper and it spins around and can dig a hole 90 feet deep. And so every four feet which is about the amount of dirt. It can bring up comes back up and dumps the garbage on the ground and we take appropriate steps to put it into bags and so forth and I do want to mention as long as we're dealing with lunch here that you know, I was I was really afraid that the smell of garbage that had been in a landfill for a while would be pretty bad. I didn't need to worry because after 10 minutes I couldn't smell anything. And neither could anybody else? But I found that the odor did somehow linger as I took the crew to a Pizza Hut for lunch, you know, (00:07:37) when you're (00:07:38) where you're when you're in the field in a normal archaeological site. You see you have to make do and and cook at camp or something. But in our case we have to go to a Tucson Pizza Hut and I was a little worried because it was kind of crowded being lunchtime that we wouldn't get served in time. No problem 10 minutes after we sat down everybody else was gone, including some of the staff the manager came up to me at the end patted me on the back and said thanks for coming, but don't hurry back. Anyway, once we got the garbage we had to figure out what to do with it. So the first thing we did in our analysis site was to go through every major item every identify identifiable item we could find and then we recorded that in terms of 20 basic categories put them into 20 different categories and recorded the weight and the volume of every one of those 20 categories. Now that seems pretty detailed but that was only the beginning then we did what that was what we called our weight sort. Then we did what we call our regular sort. We went to each and every item and wrote down the brand and the type and the size and the material composition specifically of the container and a detailed description. If it was some kind of organic debris food or yard waste so we had a really detailed item by item analysis. Then what we did is the first thing we do when we took the garbage out of the bag has put it into a half inch screen and Shake It And what came out the bottom we called fines and the fines we first washed through a quarter inch screen. And then an eight inch screen and each time. We took little tweezers and little microscope little what do you call those things that you look through magnifying glasses and we separated it all into glass plastic aluminum steel, whatever paper item by item at that size. And then what was left we did the old archaeological technique of floatation, which means you just put it in water see it's real technical stuff that we do put it in water and see what comes to the surface. And once we've done that we figured that we done enough and we threw it back into a landfill someplace. Oh, I should mention one other thing. I don't know if you can see it, but I'm I'm wearing a pop top and the reason I'm doing that as a tie clip. It's a it's a one that was minted by the Pabst Brewery for their 50th Anniversary. The reason I'm wearing that is archaeologists do very strange kinds of typology, but I think ours is the strangest because it's a pop-top typology and I'll bet you didn't know that you can tell the brand. Soft drink or beer by the shape of the pop top the little dents and holes and forms and colors identify it brand specific. So we have a typology if anybody wants to know what a ten-year-old pop-top came from we can tell you. What did we learn from doing all this stuff? I think the first and most important thing that we learned was that there is a lot of stuff that we think is in landfills that may not be there in the same quantities that we expect. I think it's very important to have this kind of hard quantitative data because so many of the decisions that are made about Solid Waste Management today are made by people who are not experts in the sense of having sorted through the garbage waded through the garbage felt. It smelled it excetera and they have to go on the basis of the ideas and Concepts which are reasonable and accepted in our society about what's in garbage. It's important for people like us to provide information about what's really there. Let me give you some examples. Last summer while we were digging in Chicago the Chicago Tribune put out a special supplement managing Urban wastes and I did something that no one should ever do and that is predict. What an archaeologist is going to dig up in a hundred years, especially if there's an archaeologists digging it up while they're writing it and what they said was the way you can identify the way archaeologists will identify a landfill of the 1980s is by microwave dinner plastic trays. They couldn't have been more wrong because if you have a microwave, I'll bet you almost anything. You have a stack of those nice plastic trays in your cupboard. Archaeologists call that curate Behavior you throw away the Box you throw away the foil you throw away, whatever else but you save that nice plastic tray. Another example, I talked to a lot of different kinds of groups. I teach classes once in a while. I talk to consumer groups business groups and so forth and I asked him what percentage of Municipal Solid Waste is fast food packaging. And the answers, you know landfill and the answers are almost invariably the same no matter how many Clues I give them between 20 and 30 percent between 20 and 30 percent. The range is usually from 5 percent to 40 percent but 75% of the guesses fall between 20 and 30 percent. What we found in all three landfills was less than half of one percent in all three landfills by both weight and volume a very different picture. What happens is that we all see that the ads for fast food packaging and we see the big signs and we use it and we see the litter and it bloats in our minds gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It's important to have some kind of perspective on it. I think diapers are the same kinds of things diapers are about one and a quarter percent in landfills in parts of the country. There are estimated to be 20 to 40 percent. I mean you'd have to bring over a lot of infants from China. Then we have to think about things like we've talked about sort of The Emperor's New Clothes. You know, what we think is there that isn't but what about what we think isn't there that is I think a real good example of that is tires. I never realized there were so many tires in landfills and I didn't know that they float they do and they keep popping up a lot of places. Now. I have shredders that's really good. They can cut them up and recycle them in one way or another my favorite example, though of what you don't think about is phone books. Phonebooks large heavy phone books and they aren't recycled very often. There isn't a lot of information about out there about how to recycle your phone book Tucson, Arizona. I want to put in a plug for us that we have a phone book recycling program that just started this year for most places. Well, thank you. I'll pass that on to KR. Keep kab is sponsoring that along with some help from Circle K. And I really think that's a great idea. Another example is newspapers. We think a lot about recycling everybody's aware that newspapers are recyclable. But newspapers are the largest single commodity in landfills contributing between 10 and 16 percent by both weight and volume (00:16:06) archaeologist Bill wrath G on what our landfills say about (00:16:10) us. As a fair amount of aluminum in landfills the fair quantity of PE T. So there are actually a number of people around the country probably several here that are considering are actually beginning to recycle landfills by digging them up and Source separating the material so it can be used for other purposes. Now all archaeologists have questions like this about what's what they can learn about what's in the garbage and what people think about it and so forth but in every archaeological dig, there's always a big surprise. And our big surprise had to do with organic material some of the organic food debris and yard waste was degraded because it was a much smaller quantity than what we recorded newspapers now as an archaeologist, I mean we dig up we dig up paper from ancient Egypt. It's no big deal 2,000 year old paper, but to a lot of people it seemed to be a pretty big deal that we had completely readable newspapers that have been buried in 1977 in a landfill and that we had nice Brown craft bags from 1977 hundreds of them that have been buried in a landfill. And I remember very well and this is one of the problems that I think confronts us the way mythology affects policy in this country. When a particular city council held meetings on Banning. non degradable materials an individual from Environmental Group gave them the information that all packaging should be biodegradable and they ask them what that meant and he said it meant that everything. Should decompose within six months. Totally I went up afterwards and I said hey, wait a second six months. He said yes, six months. I said, well, you know, we've been digging in landfills and we've got newspapers that are 10 years old and brown paper bags and all the other kind of paper. That's that all he said well, I'll tell you something so I don't just go around poking in landfills. I do scientific research, so I asked them about it. I asked them about I'll tell you what its scientific research was. It was a public Communications a PR Company. That had buried five paper bags and five plastic bags in anaerobically enhance soil. And then waited five weeks for the media to come and according to this guy in five weeks. The paper was totally degraded. So I called up the guy who was head of the PR Company and to show you the size of the company. He answered the phone and I said did you do this all yes, he done that. All right. I said well what happened? He said I don't know I said, what do you mean he said? Well, the event that we planted for didn't work out in the company that was giving us the money discontinued the funding in the middle of the project. So we never dug up the paper. That was the kind of information that was being considered as expert testimony by a major city council in the United States. I think it's important to look at the problems involved any lab that is in good shape with a good microbiologist can degrade paper in 13 weeks? There's no question about it. I've seen it done starts out as ground up paper over here and it comes out gray slime at the end of 13 weeks. They put in the bugs and put in a little bit of water and it degrades The problem is that you got problems in landfills relative to the availability of water the right kinds of bugs and movement. Let me just talk about the bugs from minute. If you have a tree falls in a forest in Aerobic conditions where you have are one bug or fungus can be great the whole thing. But if you bury that tree in an anaerobic environment without air it takes five bugs to do it beginning with clostridia and going to our key bacteria and going on and on and on and these poor little devils are sickly and they're all susceptible to different things some of them like heat someone like cold some of them like wet. Someone like dry. It's awfully hard for all of them to get together. You know how fast they move one yard every 40 years lot of problems with getting things degraded. But anyway, we wanted to investigate this further. So this summer In June, we went to a landfill called Mallard North in Hanover Park in the western suburbs of Chicago. Lots of water had a very permeable cap. So there's water all the way through the thing lots of bugs. We knew that from some tests that had been done by Argonne National Labs and the garbage was buried between 1970 and 1974. So we put in a bunch of holes and we got something like 1500 newspapers totally readable 580 brown paper bags, etc. Etc. And I was getting worried because we were getting hot dogs. We were getting T-bone steaks with the lean and the fat we were getting grass clippings. And then the bucket auger of my dreams came out of the ground. And the bottom fell open and out came gray (00:22:00) slime (00:22:03) and I said now here we've got it. This is definitely degraded material and my my co-director came over. He said now bill you really don't expect us to shovel that into bags and sort of do you I said Wilson we're doing science here. We're not poking around we're doing science. So he shoveled that stuff in there and we took it to the analysis yard poured it out on the table. And the grace line began to dry (00:22:32) up. And after half an hour, (00:22:35) it was sort of a gray film or a gray dust and all I had to do is take your finger go and it would all fall off of December 28 1971 newspaper or a brown paper bag or any number of other kinds of things. No real change. I hate to tell you what that was. We had five different Labs represented at the at the landfill three of them were taking samples and doing bacteria and virus studies and it's everybody's best guests that that was sewage sludge. That gray stuff the gray slime. And remember that that's what most people say is the best way to biodegrade materials is co dispose it with sludge because you've got the bugs you got the moisture. You've got everything and yet and at least in this case didn't help. The next thing we're going to do is on Monday. We're going to begin an excavation at a landfill in the great state of California that goes back to 1930 still in operation today and the first deposits were placed in 1930. We have Maps back in 1930 the show show us where the first dumping went on and I think we'll be able to learn some more about papers and what happens with them, but I'd like to really leave you with one. Archaeological idea as an archaeologist who studies us. I'm often asked bar we decadent. Are we about to fall apart by a sit by you know, as a civilization and I say no we're too wasteful see the fact is if you look at civilizations the way an archaeologist does I'm not talking about sexual perversions is decadence. But if you do it, the way an archaeologist does a classic is society is one that builds big temples and palaces and puts in fancy burials and spectacular caches. They are conspicuous consumers. They are wasting large quantities of resources That's a classic Society. What is an archaeologist called decadent the society that doesn't leave very much the society that bills false fronts the society that instead of spending hours carving stone carves plaster the society that recycles and reuses and conserves because they don't leave goodies for the archaeologists to find. Now if you look at Trends, the classic societies are always followed by the decadent societies and it doesn't take long to figure out why. All of a sudden one day these conspicuous consumers wake up and resources are in short supply and then the conversion. They become recyclers re users they conserve. And they do it very rapidly and efficiently but it's usually too little too late now. We if you look at our garbage, we're obviously still in the classic phase. We've got a lot of newspapers were throwing away a lot of aluminum a lot of PE t a lot of valuable resources that are really very equivalent to the gold cups and Jade beads and we're throwing them out. What we need to do. The challenge to us is to develop a decadent mentality decadent in the sense of efficiently managing resources reusing recycling conserving if we can do this before we're forced into it does that's when everybody ends up in the past doing it when they're forced into it and it's too late if we can do it before were forced into it. Then we're going to maintain our lifestyle for a lot longer period of time than most of our brother civilizations and I just wanted to say today from my heart that you are the core. Of that change in mentality, and I think you're doing a hell of a good job and keep it up. Don't leave anything for us archaeologists in the future. Just let me dig it up now. Thank you. (00:27:10) Archaeologist Bill wrath G from the University of Arizona at Tucson who spoke last September at the national recycling Congress in st. Paul and one of those who helped organize that Congress is here with us in the studio Kathy Berg moger a senior environmental planner and recycling expert from the Minnesota Pollution Control agency. Welcome. Once again, Kathy and I think bills comments are interesting about what he found in his archaeological work and what he is finding now, we're going to open up the telephone lines to invite your questions of Our Guest Kathy Berg moger about what's happening in Minnesota regarding recycling a topic that has some timeliness because of what the Minnesota Legislature has before it right now. I understand Kathy that there are some hearing scheduled for this week and next about initiatives regarding recycling. What's what is the what's on the (00:27:59) landscape? Well, basically the legislature has debated on how best to manage Solid Waste in the state for about the last 10 years and this year we see Or different recycling bills introduced that have a particular focus in this area. The bills are in hearing yesterday and for the rest of the week and then next week in the environment committees. There's one bill in particular that has a lot of support around the state and it's called score. That's the governor's select committee on recycling in the environment is a group of 22 people who basically had not agreed in the past got together over the long hot summer in a small room weekly and debated on what to do about Recycling and problem materials management and litter and so forth came up with a consensus on over 70 recommendations and pass those on to the governor in November. The governor took a look at those recommendations and agreed that he thought they were very strong and could support them. And as a result has directed the executive branch to put that into legislation. That's one of those four bills in for consideration this (00:29:10) What's the principal hold up on going to either municipal or County Wide or even Statewide recycling is at the collection Logistics and also the market for the materials. (00:29:20) Well, I think it's more a lack of resources and understanding the state has been really great in the past about putting down mandate saying to the counties or so forth. You will do this. You will do that. By the way, we don't have enough money that you can get that done. So you come up with that money on the local level. Well for recycling and waste producing were talking about everybody in the state and it doesn't matter how rural you are in koochiching County. They produce waste like they do in the metro area and you still have to manage it and it still takes a lot of money and resources that those counties just don't have (00:29:56) let's invite listeners into the conversation with our guest Kathy Berg moger from the Minnesota Pollution Control agency. Our topic is recycling in Minnesota, and you can call us in the Twin Cities at 2 2 7 6 thousand 2 2 7 6 Thousand listeners outside the Twin Cities with in Minnesota can call us toll-free at 1-866-553-2368 hundred six five two 9700. Let's go to the first caller for our guests Kathy Burke moger. Hello, you're on the line. Well, I guess this is coincidence because in my neighborhood is out there today is recycling day. and last month got a slipped disc in my back went out. So I did two months worth of recycling of newspapers and bottles and aluminum cans go elsewhere. That's a lot of work and recently when the telephone books were delivered. I figured that they ought to trade you old ones for new ones in the only explanation I've ever heard is the people who deal with the used paper don't like the glue on the back of the telephone books. But okay telephone books. Let's take that issue Kathy Burke (00:31:16) moger. Well, that's correct. The the telephone books in the past have had a glue binding on it that did not allow it to be easily recycled without cutting off that binding and as a result. It was very expensive to collect those and get them recycled. They are recyclable and the telephone companies are now moving to a glue binding. Can be dissolved in water and and therefore causing no problems. We at the state government recycle all of our telephone books and had to talk to the Department of administration to make sure that ours were recyclable as well. (00:31:49) All right back to the telephone for another listener question. Yes. Go ahead. It's your turn. Hi, I'm involved in recycling both at home and in my company and the thing that disturbs me in both places all the long list of materials that they tell you. You can't recycle. I guess I'm expanding on what the previous guy was talking about. For example, we get a whole lot of glossy paper to throw away like junk mail and things like that. We're told we can't recycle that. Now we've been told that we can't recycle cereal boxes because the market has dried up for that material. I gather that the material goes down a step each time that it's recycled. It goes sort of down. Hierarchy of of grades of paper or something like that and then there are all these kinds of plastics that we can't recycle and I'm just wondering what is I guess that Society seems to need a general approach to planning materials from the beginning so they can be recycled and and maybe even putting a tax on non-recyclable materials, but I'm just wondering what can be done in the short term about these seemingly these materials that should be recyclable at least so it seems but we're not allowed to recycle them. Like the glossy paper. The cereal box is the Plastics and things like that. Hey Kathy your reaction. (00:33:26) Well, it's correct that you can't recycle those and part of the problem that we've had is recyclers such as yourselves that are so enthusiastic that you think that everything should be. Called and unfortunately in order to be able to recycle materials, we have to have a market something to make those materials into and glossy paper has a lot of Clay on and a lot of inks that don't dissolve. Well same thing with cereal boxes in the beginning here in Minnesota when recycling was just starting. It wasn't such a big deal. We didn't have that many people recycling there weren't that many contaminants in the paper. So everybody said fine, if you know want to put out your cereal boxes and it would get more people to participate however, now that we have a more enthusiastic response, the markets are finding that their contamination level is just simply too high and they can't Market their products as a result. So we have to tighten up the restrictions a little bit on what can be included in recycling on the plastic side of things. It's a huge problem. We estimate that recycling or that Plastics take up about 30 percent of our waste stream and There aren't that many recycling opportunities for Plastics right now in Minnesota. There are some organizations that are trying to develop some new Plastics recycling opportunities and I have just started work here for a long term approach. We're looking at the federal government to take a look at packaging up front and they're looking there's a bill introduced it that from senator baucus in Montana that asks for establishment of a national packaging Institute to look at the recyclability and the environmental suitability of these types of things. (00:35:12) How do you or numbers our numbers in Minnesota compared with what we heard raft G. The archaeologists talked about in terms of the percent of the solid waste stream that is aluminum. For example, apparently a fairly valuable recyclable material and then other components that are newspaper. How does Minnesota compare with that? (00:35:28) Well aluminum is a fairly valuable item and is also recycle quite a bit, but it's only 1% or less of Always dreaming. So we're spending a lot of effort on on that material but it's not netting us very much reduction in the the landfill newspapers on the other hand are a major portion of our waste stream. We're seeing good recycling rates for newspaper in Minnesota and our Market are fibers are very much in demand throughout the nation and and actually internationally because of our good Northern (00:36:00) Hardwoods who's doing better households or businesses. Do you think in terms of recycling their stuff in Minnesota? (00:36:07) Well, I think the businesses right now have a little more incentive to do good recycling. Mostly because a lot of the households are charged a flat fee. So it doesn't matter if you recycled or not. You'd still pay the same amount for putting out your trash the businesses on the other hand are generally charge by volume and as a result the economic incentive to reduce their amount of waste is is there the problem that the businesses are having is that they really don't know how to go about Recycling and getting Those contacts and that's why we need some additional technical (00:36:39) assistance is the trash generated by households a larger portion of what we bury or is the trash generated by businesses a larger portion or can we even (00:36:48) tell well we can tell and it's about half and half in the metropolitan area commercial industrial institutional waste is definitely the greater portion. But in Greater Minnesota, there's not quite as much (00:37:01) industry. Let's go back to the telephone for another listener question. And it's your turn. Thanks for waiting. What can we do with hazardous waste? Nobody wants a dump site in their backyard and are there any new ideas to deal with it? And what is Minnesota looking at doing in the future (00:37:24) the bottle bill, which is also known as container deposit. We've tried that approach over the last 12 or 20 years. I can't remember it's been so long, but we've tried that every year. And polarized all the people and basically got nothing as a result. And so that's why the governor decided to bring together all the opposing interests over the summer for this Governor select committee on Recycling and come up with a proposal that we could get more support on for hazardous waste one of the things that's going on with the score legislation is setting up permanent household hazardous waste collection programs around the state were finding that as wrath G said and looking through our waste stream that there are things that cause those problems more so than others and household hazardous waste is definitely one of (00:38:13) those with business hazardous waste aren't there at least a couple of companies in Minnesota that are collecting and trying to recycle further distill refine some of these (00:38:20) products correct with industrial Solid Waste. We have a very good management system set up by the federal government and mimicked by the state and actually ours is a little stricter with household hazardous waste its exempt it goes into our landfills into the incinerators are compost. Ortiz and as a result we contribute to pollution problems and we need to find a different way of managing that (00:38:44) waste well, obviously a lot of listener interest. The phone lines are quite busy. Let's get back to another listener question for our guest Kathy Berg moger a recycling experts senior environmental planner from the Minnesota Pollution Control agency. It's your turn. Go ahead please I am calling from Red Wing Minnesota and I'm involved in a Cub Scout group that's in its doing paper recycling as fundraisers. And what we're looking for is some information that suitable for distribution to the public like one page handouts that can explain the advantages of paper recycling sort of sum of the percentages of the waste stream some of the comparisons of Acres of Timber versus tons of paper, you know, and the conservation of the forest resource that it can be compared also the comparison of The cost of the new aluminum being mined and smelted versus recycling of cans and that sort of material. Do you have source for that kind of thing? (00:39:45) Yes, we do the pollution control agency one of our counties under a fine from us instead of paying that find developed a public education program that could be used by any group or any other County and as a result. We have a very nice camera ready packet that you can order by contacting Itasca County and let me find that number for you very quickly (00:40:08) tell you what we'll just alert listeners to the fact that Kathy has that number and then towards the end of the broadcast here as you have a chance to poke through your papers because you have quite a Sheaf of material there will give out that address and perhaps even phone number of where folks can get in touch with Itasca County. Maybe also Kathy you might want to prepare yourself for giving up perhaps your own address in case people want to write to the PCA to get further information on Recycling and we'll That out at the end of the broadcast. Let's go ahead to the next telephone caller with a question. It's your turn a good day. I'd like to redefine this this conversation a little bit because my main concern is that Minnesota has got the most incinerators per capita of any state in the country and having looked at the score bill. It's simply redefines recycled and recyclable materials to include compostable materials. And so in fact, we're not talking about an increase in recycling. It's just a redefinition and I'd like to know what the state is doing about all these incinerators which create no incentive for recycling programs. (00:41:15) The The Listener is correct in that Minnesota does have the most number of incinerators in the nation for the recycling Bill. The score bill compostables is something that is being debated in the committee's right now for being included in recycling and there are people on both sides of the issue saying that 25 Santa's far too much for counties to reach without including yard waste composting as a result and for those rural counties, they're saying that we don't have any yard waste. So why included in the and the recycling goal and make us meet a higher standard that will be debated for the rest of the week and probably the rest of the month. For incinerators the recyclables that were looking at were looking at not just the ones that cause problems and incinerators, but also those that cause problems in landfills and composting facilities all the technologies that we use to manage our waste there's also been some discussion of setting up a state hierarchy that would establish a preference for managing our ways the state Pollution Control agency already has a preference for the Metro or the non-metro counties in doing their Solid Waste plans and that's waste reduction and recycling (00:42:32) first. Is it pretty clear that the growth of incineration and Minnesota has cut in to the recycling effort in a pretty harmful way. (00:42:40) Well, I don't think so. It's been my feeling that the incinerators were something easy for people to grasp and that it handled a major part of the solid waste problem quickly, which is the pressure that the County Commissioners were We're under it's harder to change people's habits. It's harder to get recycling established and it's not so familiar to people also there aren't as many consultants that deal with recycling as they do for an incineration. So as a result, we've seen a lag however, because of the need to keep that way stream clean for burning. We see a renewed emphasis on Recycling and waste (00:43:20) reduction back to the telephone for another question for our guest Kathy Berg moger and it's your turn. Go ahead. I heard the tail end of the previous comment, but I did not hear the whole question. One of the I'm on the advisory committee for the Hennepin County rdf and where I'm also involved in looking at composting and Hennepin County in the yard waste composting is proposed in Ramsey County in that process. We've learned that the market for recyclables is somewhere around 16 percent maximum. I'd like to have Cathy comment on that and also if she knows anything about the Comment that in the west coast Japanese are taking the sum of the are the glossy paper and recycling that in offshore facilities and then sending the back to this country. I've heard this from some people in Seattle. I'll hang up. Thank you. (00:44:13) The market problem is is something that we've seen a lot of news on from the east coast and the west coast and so as a result we've done a little exploring on our own to see where we were in the Midwest and basically Minnesota sits pretty well. As far as markets are concerned. We have a glass manufacturing plant here in Shakopee that can take a lot of the collet actually all the state can produce and more that's the recycled glass. For those of you that don't know that pellet call it that term sounds like a steak fish, right? That's a car for the paper markets. That's where we've seen the most problems on the east and west coast and it turns out that our paper is That's particularly desirable to ship overseas and also to ship around the nation because we have longer fibers than any other kind of recycled paper. And as a result The Listener was correct in saying that the amount of recycling that you can do each time goes down because the fibers get shorter and shorter as they get mashed up each time and our long fibers are in particular demand. So we sit well in the newspaper and corrugated markets for tin cans. We do have a little bit of problem in that there are Midwest markets, but we do have transportation costs and so as a result in as part of the score bill will be looking at setting up Cooperative marketing or Transportation Systems to help reduce those costs (00:45:42) back to the telephone and another listener question. It's your turn. Go ahead, please thank you. I think like many people listening and calling in today. I feel social responsibility to see that the household waste that I produce as Handled in a responsible way. I was pleased to find out from my waste collection service that they deliver it to a new how do they put it Solid Waste processing and recycling facility in Eden Prairie where it's hand sorted, I guess for various items that may be recycled and they're planning on a composting portion of that as well. I was wondering how effective is this. Is this really the long-term answer for the problems that we're having or one of many are how does that fit into what you're trying to do? (00:46:31) Well, the process that you're talking about is basically separating garbage and and densifying it into rdf. It's refuse-derived Fuel and then taking out the recyclables and composting the heavy fraction that used to be a demonstration technology in Minnesota. We have two facilities that are small-scale the one in Eden Prairie and then also one in Thief River Falls and We have a very large facility in Newport run by an SP the it's a Prelude to incineration. And so as a result, we're looking at the recyclable portion of that and saying that's that's great. However, those materials are contaminated, of course, they've been in your in the garbage Packer truck and you the homeowner have not separated them and they're not nice and clean. So as a result the markets aren't quite as good and actually drag down a little bit the markets for other recyclables. So we're empty emphasizing rdf facilities and incinerator facilities and trying to focus our efforts this year on waste reduction and (00:47:37) recycling more callers with questions. Let's get to the next caller right now. It's your turn. Go ahead, please. Hi. Yeah. I want to comment about the lag time you spoke of I think that the people are a little bit ahead of the government and that the government is lacking leadership here. I'm thinking of the 1973 oil crisis when people really changed quickly. I have two comments. I want to compliment the gentleman who suggested taxing non-recyclable Goods at the manufacturing level. I think that's a brilliant contribution. But why not mandate commercial and Industrial recycling? That's really a biggie. And also I haven't heard anything about CFCs in the ozone (00:48:14) layer. Okay, the Mandate and Commercial and Industrial is is a step that we're not quite ready to take what we're looking at doing in the metro area. And especially For Greater Minnesota who quite hasn't reached the recycling levels that we're seeing here is setting up voluntary programs and seeing what kind of results we get from that if by 1993 we don't receive a 25% recycling rate from both commercial and Industrial and the households then we will look at mandating both participation and the fact that opportunities to recycle have to be provided. That's one of the issues that of course is contained in these four different recycling bills, and we'll be up for debate this week as far as the tax on packaging and and other problem materials last year. We went through a rather rigorous battle on a packaging tax and and lost in a very big way and so as a result it was something that Decided not to propose again this year, although it is up for consideration for other states. (00:49:22) And then on the issue of CFCs in (00:49:24) Minnesota CFCs in Minnesota. We've just completed a study to find out what is contributing the most to CFCs in Minnesota and you can get copies of that from the pollution control agency packaging is one of the major concerns of folks the styrofoam packaging has contained CFC items in the past and as a result has been banned in many locations Minnesota Bandit last year, the packagers themselves have voluntarily phased out the CFC styrofoam. So as a result, we won't be seeing much of that in the (00:50:04) state back to the telephone for your question. Go ahead Kathy Burke mogar's listening. Hi. I've got a suggestion that what some people might do with that terrible stuff styrofoam something since recycling is kind of a Final decision. Anyway, you have to the individual asked to decide to recycle. There's some things that my wife and I have been doing with styrofoam that it doesn't seem like much but a thousands of people did it might it might have an effect on the amount of Styrofoam in the garbage and we just keep a bag of all the styrofoam containers that you just can't avoid like the come with meat products and whatnot. You put them in a bag and when the bag fills up you go up in the attic and you add it to the insulation that's already in your house and you just don't ever think about it again. (00:50:48) Actually, that's a good comment because there is a pilot program in New York to make insulation out of McDonald's styrofoam containers and McDonald's is sponsoring that research as well. They're looking at making Plastic Lumber and and yo-yos out of that material. (00:51:04) All right, the market for yo-yos is up and down is we know so who knows where that will go from here back to the telephone for another question. It's your turn. Yes. I like the springboard off the comment about government mandates, I think. We'd still be on the Model T age. If we didn't have free enterprise to take the lead in developing the car with all the way. So I know that there have been rules proposed by the PCA staff that sometimes don't make too much sense. One of them was a one-foot clay liner that they were talking about underneath Leaf composting piles. This would be a municipal Leaf dump. And I think they had a meeting with the solid waste officers and that was kind of shot down because it wasn't practical and I'm wondering if PCA could just kind of helped develop markets and let free enterprise find the best way to recycle and everything will come to a natural level as the percentages that people will recycle with. (00:52:01) Well at the pollution control agency, we have a two-fold purpose in dealing with the environment. The first is that we want to make sure that we protect the environment and one of the reasons why we looked at having some kind of impermeable pad underneath leaf piles is it it may seem that that there isn't anything dangerous in a bunch of pile of leaves. But in fact, they do produce leachate, which is commonly called Leaf 8 and as a result, it can get into our surface water in our groundwater and cause problems there. The agency is also looking at developing markets for materials and we do have staff that are working on that right now particularly for plastics for the state of Minnesota and we're also asking for more money to be able to do that through this score legislation. (00:52:51) Well, the question hasn't really come up yet and now is a chance for you to speak to it, which is what do we do with all this plastic? It is not apparently a part of some Municipal recycling plans apparently. Because not collected in some communities. It is collected in some others. I'm told is that right? So what so what can we do with it? (00:53:08) Well, that's correct. St. Louis Park and some other communities are doing trial runs with plastics materials part of the difficulty with curbside recycling is the fact that the Plastics are very bulky and as a result the trucks can't pick up a mutt as much of that material as they'd like to we have a number of pilot programs that are going on in the state that some of our private Enterprise people are working with national companies to get Plastics recycling going. Another part of the problem is that it's very hard to identify what kind of plastic you're dealing with and you would have to light it on fire at one point to figure out what color the flame was in order to tell what it was now we have a labeling system that the state mandated last year. And so you as the consumer would be able to tell exactly what kind of plastic it was and therefore put it in your Ben by looking at the (00:54:02) bottom, but for the moment plastic recycling is just not a large part of the equation apparently except for commercial (00:54:10) dad's True commercial and Industrial has a larger amount of recycling for plastic simply because they have the volumes and they have the clean materials those of us who purchase many different kinds of plastic and different containers just don't have those (00:54:25) opportunities a time for perhaps a couple more questions and we'll take one from you. Go ahead please Kathy's listening. Thank you very much. I live in Plymouth, which has a very effective once a week recycling pickup and it's been my experience that when I go through and sort out bottles cans newspapers other recyclable paper Etc without making a detailed study of what I have left in my garbage and not only is it relatively small but on a week in and week out basis. I find it seems that the bulk of that by weight and perhaps volume are the mail order catalogs that I get, but apparently I haven't heard anybody. You'll say that a landfill examination reveals that to be true on a broad basis is my experience. So unique compared to everybody else and what happens to that kind of material when it is picked up. Thank you. All listen, (00:55:15) the mail order catalogs in the magazines are a particular problem. Not only here in Minnesota, but Across the Nation because of the clay coating and then printing inks that are used. There are some folks that do recycle that but only the clean stuff from the industries. There are some experiments going on in neighboring Wisconsin to make kitty litter or animal bedding out of those types of materials. And right now you shouldn't be putting that in your recycling system because it is a contaminant for the newspaper materials. So please don't do (00:55:49) that. I want to get out just a couple of points in this may take away time for any more calls from listeners first. We want to give out the address of Itasca County if you've had a chance to find that but Additional question. We have you gotten the sense Kathy that households and citizens in the state are getting mixed signals about recycling. We're told recycled because of course it saves money and then on the other hand we hear that there's no market for the stuff and then we'll have to impose government subsidies to help recycling along which is it as recycling save money or cost money. (00:56:22) Well, there's no doubt about it that recycling costs money. No one expects you to pick up your garbage for free and recycling as a service like anything else. We're just finding a different way of managing our materials than throwing it directly in the landfill or the incinerator. It's not cheap, but it is cheaper than those (00:56:40) alternatives for those folks requesting now the information regarding printed materials for comparisons of recyclables and throwing things away. Do you have that Itasca County address? (00:56:50) Right? The Itasca County Materials are a PR campaign that can be utilized by groups or counties or so forth and you can order it from Terry green side. (00:57:01) Gary green side. Is that a mr. Or am is (00:57:04) it's a mr. And it's Itasca County zoning and Solid Waste Department (00:57:08) Itasca County zoning and Solid Waste Department. (00:57:12) Okay, and that's at the County Courthouse. Hmm Grand Rapids, Minnesota (00:57:17) Grand Rapids. What's the ZIP code there? 55744557444 that information. Do you want to give out your own address? Perhaps even telephone number for Pure have (00:57:30) questions. I have lots of technical assistance materials available and and also some Publications that may be helpful in answering questions and you can get in contact with me by calling six one two, two nine six 8439 (00:57:46) that area code is 6122968439. (00:57:53) Or you can write to me Carol the pollution control agency. Five to zero Lafayette and st. Paul and the zip code is (00:58:05) 5515555155. (00:58:08) That's Kathy Berg moger Emma. We GE are at the Minnesota Pollution Control agency 520 Lafayette st. Paul 55155. Thanks a lot for coming by Kathy and participating in the discussion. Thank (00:58:24) you. (00:58:27) Good afternoon. This is Gary. Eichten Minnesota Housing Finance. Agency does not have a very high profile. It's not very well known but it's low-interest mortgage programs have affected thousands of Minnesota home buyers over the years today. The legislative auditor is out with a study of the agency's operations and will have a report on NPR Journal also today we'll look at a plan to expand and modify cab service in Minneapolis. We invite you to tune in for those stories in the rest of the News 5 o'clock in our music stations, 5:30 on our news stations live coverage of public affairs events and proceedings on Minnesota Public. Radio is made possible by the public affairs fund contributors include the law firm of Opperman and Paquin with offices in Minneapolis and Washington DC. It's midday for today technical directors Clifford Bentley and Patty Ray Rudolph. This is Danielson reporting.