Recycling in Mountain Village
This tour follows recyclables from disposal to repurposing through the town's two waste haulers: Waste Management and Bruin Waste Management
Introduction
This StoryMap was created to provide transparency to the community members of Mountain Village regarding their recycling system. It seeks to display the recycling processes of both waste haulers step-by-step using a guided map tour and interactive maps. This StoryMap also aims to clear up common misconceptions regarding recycling contamination, wholesale markets, and vehicle operations. In October of 2023 the Town's Economic Development and Sustainability Director, J.D. Wise, and Paige Kempker, a Western Colorado University environmental management graduate student, traveled to Grand Junction and Montrose to visit the Waste Management and Bruin Waste Management Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) to discuss these misconceptions. Mountain Village staff hopes that once provided with this transparency, community members will be encouraged to increase recycling rates to help meet The Town's zero-waste and climate action goals.
Waste Management
Waste Management is a national waste hauler and is one of two haulers used by the Town of Mountain Village. Waste Management recycles using a dual-stream system. A dual-stream recycling method collects plastics, steel and aluminum cans, and glass in one bin and all papers (including cardboard) in another. Click here or on the Waste Management logo on the left to find a complete list of accepted Waste Management recyclables.
Collection from the Village Center
All Village Center bins are collected by Mountain Village Staff and transported via electric golf cart to the town's maintenance shop for Waste Management's collection.
Waste Management Collection
Waste Management collects recycling from the maintenance shop for transport. This is the first opportunity for contamination to be removed. Items not accepted for recycling may be left behind. Common items include lawn chairs, garden hoses, and metals that are not aluminum, steel, or tin cans.
Waste Management Materials Recovery Facility (MRF)
Recyclables are transported to Waste Management's Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) where they are sorted and baled for market purchase.
Paper and Cardboard
The first step to sorting recyclables in a dual-stream system is separating the paper from cardboard. At Waste Management, this is done manually using a wheel loader.
Mixed Recyclables Enter the Conveyor Belt
Mixed recyclables are manually loaded onto a conveyor belt for sorting. This is the second opportunity for contaminants to be removed manually as the person loading the materials will not load anything noticeably unacceptable. This primarily includes large items and plastic film that can jam the sorting machines.
Tin-coated Steel Can Sorting
Once the mixed recyclables enter the conveyor belt, they pass below a magnetic conveyor belt. The magnetic steel cans are hoisted from the mixed recyclables and separated into their bin. This is the third opportunity for contamination to be removed as smaller residuals fall through small openings in the conveyor belt.
Indoor Sorting
After the cans are removed, the rest of the mixed recyclables travel on the conveyor belt and enter the indoor sorting station on the left-hand side. The Grand Junction MRF's machinery cost Waste Management about $32 million and recovers about 1,100 tons of recyclables each month!
Plastics
Plastics are sorted manually by two Waste Management staff members. The first person sorts all #1 plastics into their bin and the second person sorts #2-7 plastics into their respective bins. Although the second person is responsible for more plastics, the first person remains busier due to the mass quantities of #1 plastics that enter the MRF.
Aluminum Cans
The final sorting mechanism uses an air mechanism (orange machine shown) to lift aluminum cans from the residual contaminant materials and transfer them into their bin. Note that aluminum cans are the only accepted aluminum material. Waste Management does not accept aluminum foil, sheet aluminum, aluminum aerosol containers, etc.
Baled Market Materials
Once all materials are sorted, each bin is baled up and sold to various markets where they are repurposed into new products. Note that Waste Management occasionally sells baled mixed recyclables (second image) to be sorted elsewhere when they are over capacity. Continue the tour to see where each material goes next!
Residuals (Contaminants)
The leftover contaminants, known as residuals, drop off of the conveyor belt and are taken to the Mesa County landfill in Grand Junction. It is important to note that, although these residuals are being taken to the landfill, they only account for about 3% of materials that enter Waste Management's Grand Junction MRF.
Note that this is the fourth and final opportunity for contamination to be removed from the recyclables after customer disposal. Contamination only ruins the whole bin if it has an odor that permeates through the whole batch. Examples of this include diapers, smoke, and large amounts of food scraps.
Waste Management Resource Recovery Markets
Once materials are sorted and baled, they are sold to wholesalers to be repurposed into new products. Unlike some other recovery facilities, Waste Management does not stockpile materials as markets fluctuate. Instead, they sell at market value, occasionally charging a tipping fee to the generator to help offset losses when necessary.
Below is a map of the U.S. regions that purchase recovered materials from Waste Management. In order to protect buyer confidentiality, not all recovered materials are listed.
U.S. map of Waste Management regional buyers for cardboard, newspaper, tin-coated steel cans, aluminum cans, and plastics.
Bruin Waste Management
Bruin Waste, a local waste hauler that services the Western Slope, is the second hauler that services the Town of Mountain Village. Bruin Waste recycles using a single-stream system. A single-stream recycling method collects all mixed recyclables (including paper and cardboard) in one bin. Click here or on the Bruin Waste logo on the right to find a comprehensive list of accepted Bruin Waste recyclables.
In 2020, the Bruin Waste Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) shut down due to issues with staffing during the global pandemic. At this time, community members received a letter notifying them that all waste was being taken to the landfill. As of 2024, Bruin Waste is still struggling to staff its facility but has resumed recycling by transporting materials to other MRF locations. Bruin is able to do this because the money saved on staffing is applied to the cost of transportation. Today about 90% of recyclables collected by Bruin Waste are shipped to the Rocky Mountain Recycling Services MRF in Salt Lake City, Utah. The other 10% is sent to Waste Management's MRF in Grand Junction as previously discussed in this tour .
Collection from the Village Center Core
Because the Village Center Core is inaccessible to large recycling trucks, collection bins are gathered by Bruin Waste staff using an electric golf cart and transported to the Village Center's truck-accessible collection room on Mountain Village Blvd.
Bruin Waste Collection
Bruin Waste collects recycling from the collection room on Mountain Village Blvd for transport. This is the first opportunity for contamination to be removed. Items not accepted for recycling may be left behind. Common items include lawn chairs, garden hoses, and metals that are not aluminum, steel, or tin cans.
Bruin Waste Materials Recovery Facility (MRF)
Recyclables are transported to Bruin Waste's Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Montrose where cardboard is separated and mixed recyclables are prepared to be sent to their next location.
Initial Cardboard Sorting
Some of the cardboard is manually separated from mixed recyclables using a track loader. It is then baled up and sold at market value. This is the second opportunity for contamination to be removed as cleaner materials increase their market values.
Prepare Mixed Recyclables for Transport
Mixed recyclables are baled and loaded into a truck to be transported to an active MRF. 90% of materials will go to Salt Lake City, Utah to be recovered by Rocky Mountain Recycling Services. The other 10% will go to Waste Management's Grand Junction MRF and follow the same process previously described in this tour.
Rocky Mountain Recycling Services Materials Recovery Facility (MRF)
Mixed recyclables are transported to Rocky Mountain Recycling Services' single-stream MRF in Salt Lake City, Utah. This MRF is staffed with ten quality control sorters at various points in the sorting line at all times. Five people are assigned to the pre-sort section, where they manually remove contamination in the form of large objects or films that could potentially jam the sorting machines. This is the third opportunity for contamination to be removed from Mountain Village's Bruin Waste recyclables.
Final Cardboard Sorting
The Salt Lake City MRF uses a single-stream system that begins by sorting cardboard from the mixed recyclables. Once materials pass through pre-sort, they are loaded onto the Old Corrugated Cardboard (OCC) screen where small materials fall through leaving cardboard sorted up top.
Tin-coated Steel Cans
After falling through the OCC screen, similar to Waste Management's Grand Junction MRF earlier in this StoryMap, the rest of the mixed recyclables pass below a magnetic conveyor belt which lifts tin-coated steel cans from the other materials.
Plastics
After the tin-coated steel cans are removed, plastics are sorted manually by two quality control sorters. Although there are two people stationed here, they tend to be too busy with plastics to be able to remove any contamination at this stage.
Aluminum Cans
Like Waste Management's MRF in Grand Junction, the last sorting mechanism is an air current used to separate aluminum from the residual contamination. Note that this is the fourth and final opportunity for contamination to be removed.
Baled Market Materials
Once the sorting bin for each material is filled, they are loaded into the baler to be consolidated into cubes. These cubes are then sold to wholesalers to be further broken down and made into new products.
Residuals (Contamination)
The residual contamination at the Rocky Mountain Recycling Services MRF is transported to Fairfield, Utah where it is disposed of a the Intermountain Regional Landfill.
Rocky Mountain Recycling Services Resource Recovery Markets
Once materials are sorted and baled, they are sold to wholesalers to be repurposed into new products. Rocky Mountain Recycling Services does not stockpile materials to sell when markets are favorable. They instead take advantage of their surplus of wholesale buyers and take advantage of competitive pricing all over the country. These markets fluctuate monthly so, for most materials, there is not one consistent region of buyers that Rocky Mountain Recycling Services sells to.
Below is a map of U.S. regions that purchase recovered materials from Rocky Mountain Recycling Services. In order to protect buyer confidentiality, not all recovered materials are listed.
U.S. map of Rocky Mountain Recycling Services regional buyers for plastics and paper materials.
Truck Differentiation
The truck on the left side of the image is a recycling truck. The truck on the right side of the image is a landfill truck. The primary differences are the back end of the trucks and how they are operated. The landfill truck is rounded in the back and is operated strictly from inside the vehicle. Alternatively, the recycling truck is angular in the back and requires operators to get out and check collection bins for contamination.
Bruin Waste recycling (left) and landfill (right) truck comparison. Slide left and right to view the different trucks.
