Behind the scenes at the Seabrook Transfer Station
It's not a dump.
We’ve all been there. You sort and sift – and you think you’ve got everything just right. You hold your breath while the recycling crew sorts your bins into their truck. When you go out to pick up your (hopefully) empty bins, you find a few things left behind. I don’t know about you, but when that happens we feel like we failed a test, and vow to do better next time. Why is our recycling team so choosy? We set out to find out – and what we learned was very impressive!
Some towns have “Single Stream”. This is the approach in which anything which might be recyclable is thrown into one container. Other towns have “Double Stream”, in which paper and cardboard are placed in one bin, while plastic and glass containers go into the other. In both cases, 100% of what is placed in the bins is picked up by the town. These are the approaches that many of our friends, family & guests are used to - and many are under the mistaken impression that their town is recycling everything. In fact, they are likely recycling far less than we do in Seabrook.
In Seabrook, our DPW team does “curbside sorting”. That’s what’s happening when the crew is outside your house deciding which items they will take and loading them into separate compartments on their trucks. Turns out, they are onto something. Here’s why - when different types of recyclables get mixed together, they become contaminated, turning them into plain old trash. For example, glass thrown in with cardboard may break and the shards go into the cardboard, making it un-recyclable. And there’s this – the stuff the crew doesn’t take is the stuff which is not actually recyclable. Whether they picked it up or not, it would end up in the trash headed for the landfill.
The feedback that we get by seeing what they leave behind makes us better recyclers. By the way, please use your actual recycling bins, which are designed to hook onto the truck to make the sorting process quicker and easier.
By doing the sorting on the curb, the crew brings back to the Transfer Station only those items which they will be able to sell to the vendors who purchase cardboard, aluminum, other metals, plastics and glass. And it comes in mostly pre-sorted. There is an additional step to sort plastics into type 1 and type 2. Once everything is sorted, the two types of plastic, aluminum cans and cardboard are crushed and baled into big cubes which are placed into the trailers which are picked up by the recycling vendors. Glass is stored separately in a big trailer which is picked up by another partner. The money earned by selling recyclables has offset the cost of the newest rubbish and recycling trucks. In addition, a loader is being paid from transfer station revenue.
We had a great time chatting with Wayne Thurlow, Keith Sanborn and Dennis Perkins, the crew working at the Transfer Station on the morning we stopped by. Along with answering our questions, they shared memories of Rick Bowlen, the beloved co-worker they recently lost at the young age of 41. The loss of Rick came only a year after the tragic loss of Justin Janvrin, another valued member of the DPW team who passed away at age 26.
As Wayne pointed out, his facility is a TRANSFER Station, not a dump. Very true – as almost everything which is brought in is eventually transferred out. Because the team does such a good job on recycling, there is much less trash which must be sent to one of NH’s landfills, saving the town money.
Kudos to DPW head John Starkey for his leadership of this impressive operation. We really appreciated the welcoming response from his team. As John said – they are the Department of PUBLIC (not private) Works!