Design News for Mechanical and Design Engineers

In your editorial (DN MY VIEW 08.15.05, http://rbi.ims.ca/4397-503) on recycling you asked for personal stories. My favorite one comes from this past winter in the Philadelphia Airport. It was part of the normal delay and non-truth in flying stuff that has become routine. During a delayed and oversold departure, I was reading a magazine next to the gate, where there were a half-dozen trash bins—marked "metal," "glass," "plastic," and "trash." I think there were even options for "paper" and "colored glass." So as I sat there the janitor comes by, opens the trash bin and dumps it into a large barrel on wheels. He then went down the line of recycle bins and just dumped each on top of the other. I guess the bins were there to keep the crunchy-granola types feeling good, but it all went into one garbage barrel. So much for all of that human effort to sort our trash into the different color bins, it all exited in the same garbage barrel.

Randall M. German, Mississippi State, MS

What's your point? Are you in fact suggesting that we stop ("trash") curbside recycling just because you had a few bad experiences with it? Give me a break. Better stop driving because you once ran out of gas, or stop writing on a computer because it crashes every once in a while. Personally, I'd rather hear the success stories and the solutions than a compilation of gripes. In my town we have a couple of options for recycling. One of them is Greenwaste Recovery. They collect just about everything (it seems that way, anyway). They don't require us to separate paper, plastic and metal, and they do not have a reputation for being "persnick-ety." I think there are companies out there that support recycling because they have to and those that support it because they want to. If the city and company incentives are structured to encourage the right behavior, you'll eventually get it. For instance, how about giving them more profit per ton of recycling that per ton of waste? Your readers have solutions to problems. Don't waste our time making us all feel disenfranchised. Give us the insights for self empowerment.

Dave Duff, Palo Alto, CA

I laughed out loud when I read your editorial on recycling. Living in the oft-forgotten western half of your state (Massachusetts) we too participate in the curbside recycling effort. My wife and I do our best to make sure our materials are properly prepared and sorted on the curb according to the published guidelines (curiously, these guideline are mailed out every year on non-recycled paper). We dutifully rinse food containers, make sure that pizza boxes (which must be made of some special non-recyclable corrugate) are not bundled with the rest of the cardboard and paper, and check each bit of plastic to be sure it meets the requirements for recycling.

Having three cats and a dog, we usually have an entire bin filled with pet food cans by the time our every other week recycling cycle comes around. The last time I'd gone to one of those warehouse clubs I nabbed a large plastic bucket of kitty litter and we'd come to the end.

Having no use for this sturdy bucket with a metal handle (we have all the buckets we need for sand, salt, gardening, etc., thank you), I checked the bottom after removing the handle and noted the large recycling symbol, the material being LDPE, and having the appropriate approved "number" (again, from the published forms), easily qualified this for the special blue bin. I did however find the bucket to be nigh-uncrushable and decided to take my chance and place it in the bin. Of course, after returning home that night, there was the bucket. No note explaining why, just the bucket. Perhaps they felt that I needed another bucket or perhaps I had not crushed it to their liking.

I waited until the next cycle, and having used a sledgehammer in the meantime, I placed the now flattened bucket back in the bin. My heart sank when I returned home to again find the flattened bucket left on the curb. Again—no note explaining why. I thought that maybe they did not realize it was recyclable and since now it had become a matter of principle (I wasn't going to throw out the recyclable bucket when it clearly could go to good use as a future pair of sneakers or a park bench, or maybe some of that composite decking I so desire). So using a permanent marker I circled the large recycling symbol, highlighted the material and numbers, and wrote "please recycle" in large block letters with arrows and exclamation points (my wife suggested a smiley face but that's where I drew the line). Wanting to take no chances of seeing the bucket left by the curb a third time, I buried the flattened, annotated bucket in the bin under a plethora of cleaned pet food cans and the usual assortment of other approved recyclable materials. Finally, the bucket was gone when I got home. My wife just went and bought more kitty litter in the same container.

Joseph C. Longo, West Springfield, MA

Enjoyed your editorial. Apparently (at least in my city) the only reason to separate recyclables is to save the trash company labor cost on sorting (which admittedly is non-trivial) and to make the public feel environmentally responsible and good about themselves. My story to back this up: One day a few weeks ago it was combo trash and recycle day. Towards mid-afternoon it was obvious that, although the trash had been picked up, the recycle truck had missed us. I called the contract refuse company my city uses and informed them of the missed pick-up. They very politely said they would remedy the situation. Sure enough, about an hour later, the truck pulled up and picked up all of the recyclables. The only problem was that it was a trash truck. I took down the time and the number of the truck, got on the phone, and tried to find the person in City Hall who was the contract administrator for the refuse contract. This turned out to be a tough thing to do. The system did not support my getting to him and they tried to divert me to the trash company a couple of times. I finally got the right guy. He expressed appreciation for the feedback and my tenacity. He did admit that they had done something they shouldn't have done, but only because it looks bad to the public. I was stunned when he then told me they pick through the trash for recyclables anyway.

G. Thompson, Mountain View, CA

I found your article on "Let's Trash Curbside Recycling," to be a bit annoying. I can relate to you on the issue of cutting up boxes to meet curbside recycling requirements. I have taken the box cutter to many large boxes to make the appropriate sized pieces. It is a cumbersome task but I hope the efforts do help the environment. What I find annoying is that you seem to have "trashed" the system because of your procrastination to do a "lovely" cleanup in one weekend. This put a burden on you and the collectors. If you would have done it in little chunks you would have not had the problems you encountered. Don't blame your frustrations on the system. Yours is not a crazy story—it's just a story that took up a page of paper that I hope will get recycled by some responsible people.

A Responsible Recycler

Here in Milford, MA we have curbside recycling, too. Because we have three cats, we go through kitty litter at a good clip, which means we buy it by the 35-lb tub at Target or BJ's. The tubs are recyclable, so we put them out on the curb, usually filled with cans, bottles, plastic, etc. Half the time, the recycle people empty the tubs and return them to us with our blue boxes. We have to mark them "Take Tub" to get them picked up. At least the pickup people can read English.

Our town noted the amount of recycling has gone down over the last few years. I bet identity theft is one reason. We rip off address labels on magazines, newspapers, catalogs, and junk mail so nothing with our names on it goes in the recycle bins. Some catalogs include pre-printed order forms, so the process takes some work. I'm sure other people simply trash this stuff to keep it out of the hands of people intent on stealing identities. I also shred a lot more paper and treat it as trash rather than recycling it.

I wish the town would take shredded paper, but so far, nada. In Milford, we can recycle lots of other "stuff" though—TV sets, refrigerators, ACs, monitors, car batteries, motor oil, paint, hazardous chemicals (1X/year), metal, mercury thermometers, etc., so the town has an effective program. It's just difficult to motivate people to use it. I hear in Barre, MA, the town uses clear plastic bags that residents buy. That way, the town can see that people don't throw away recyclables or stuff that shouldn't go in a landfill. I think the easiest way to get rid of stuff is to put it on the curb with a "FREE" sign on it. I'm always surprised by what people will take.

Jon Titus, Milford, MA

Your curbside "frustrycling" is well understood by this writer. In my neck of the woods, trash collection is contracted by the citizens with private companies. The company I use requires us to PAY a monthly fee if we want to participate in the supplemental curbside recycling program. As crazy as it might sound, I see a dozen or so homes in my neighborhood with the recycle containers out on recycling day . . . bless their hearts. Yours in trash—

Dick Molin, Indianapolis, IN

I had a similar experience in the city of Renton, Washington. My "Mt. Everest" was similar to yours, and like you, I had put in a couple of hours reducing a number of heavy boxes to that pile, only to find a similar note attached. So I went to the top—used the city's web page to locate the name of the councilwoman who was chair of the recycling committee, and sent her a polite email detailing my plight. I suggested that if anything were ever to be recycled from my home in the future, this cardboard would have to disappear. Apparently it worked. The collection truck detoured from their regular route the next day to drive by my house and pick up the cardboard! I only wish I cold have been there to watch and gloat!

Steve Cavanaugh, Redmond, WA

An article in the 08.15.05 issue of DN on a new magnetostrictive-based transducer from Tol-o-matic http://rbi.ims.ca/4397-504 misstated a spec: The correct linearity for rodless cylinders on strokes longer than 20 inches is ±0.025 percent of the full stroke. The maker of the magnetostrictive sensor in this application is Balluff.