SCRAM Newsletter - Spring 1996

• Recycling Education in the Region
  • Waste On Wheels
  • Burgess Elementary - Sturbridge
• State REAPS
• SCRAM Meetings
• Leicester Recycling
• Call Your Legislator - Expanded Bottle Bill
• State Recycling Report Cards
• Fitchburg Deinking Mill Goes On-line

Recycling Education in the Region

Waste On Wheels

By John Alphin

Along with the growth of recycling programs in the region over the last five years, recycling education in the public schools has blossomed. I have had the pleasure of doing eighty six recycling presentations to elementary school classrooms across the region in the last four months and am amazed at how much our kids know about recycling and composting. All of the schools are teaching about recycling along with many other environmental issues. Many of the schools have one or two teachers directly connected with their town's recycling coordinators and this helps them focus their curriculum around the town's recycling program. These teachers are all excited to have us participating in their classrooms. Most of the schools have paper recycling programs and many have composting projects. SCRAM has helped facilitate the start up of school paper recycling by organizing a paper pickup for the region, with North Shore Recycled Fibers. SCRAM has also awarded composting bins to three schools to honor teachers with innovative composting projects operating without bins .

My presentations have been greatly facilitated by three museum quality, interactive displays called "Waste On Wheels". The displays were designed and built with money from a USDA Rural Economic & Community Development Grant project led by Lynn Rose of Franklin County Solid Waste District. We have access to the displays through Bill Stanwood from Fundamental Action to Conserve Energy, one of three regional groups responsible for the grant. The displays are visually stunning and very interactive which keeps the kid's attention. "Alumina Crank", the star of the displays, gives kids a chance to feel the energy it takes to make an aluminum can from bauxite ore by turning a generator crank fast enough to light a bulb on top of the display. They are asked if they could keep it up for 5 1/2 hours to make one can. They then turn the crank in the opposite direction and it is 95% easier . This represents the amount of energy it takes to make an aluminum can from a recycled can. This savings amounts to enough energy to run a T.V. for 3 1/2 hours. Suddenly what seems like such a small choice about recycling or throwing away a can, becomes a discussion about how we have 50 to 100 years of aluminum left on the planet at current consumption rates and how much energy we will save over the course of a lifetime of recycling cans. I then follow this up with discussions of other natural resources: where our glass; paper; steel and plastic comes from and the energy savings involved in recycling these products.

The second display asks kids to match up pictures of products with their best waste management practice by pressing buttons on the display. These are difficult concepts but put into a game kids grasp them quickly. They come up with creative answers to problems like how to reduce the use of paper towels, going way beyond the sponge, rag and mop solutions with ideas like having their dog lick up a spill. The third display shows two children bringing lunch to school, one with overpackaged junk food the other with homemade lunch in reusable containers. When you ask them to multiply the waste of the first child's overpackaging by the whole school they get an idea how important their choices really are. This display goes into more detail about choices in buying with reduce,reuse, recycling in mind by looking at the different ways we buy juice. I have four more elementary schools to visit to finish the region with this "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle"display and hope to acomplish this this year. I also intend to pursue funding to continue these types of presentations next year with another set of the Waste On Wheels displays designed around Household Hazardous Waste.

These presentations have been an excellent way to connect with our community and see what a good job our teachers are doing. Our mailing database now lists teachers from each school in our region. We will be devoting our May SCRAM meeting to bringing these teachers together to share their expertise. We will have examples of recycling and composting curriculum material at this meeting from the Regional Environmental Council's Resource Library. Ask your teachers to come.

Burgess Elementary - Sturbridge

By 6th graders Kristen Ploski, Jenna Commito & Nicole Mancini

Our all encompassing theme in the Sixth Grade here at Burgess Elementary School is "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". We have built our science curriculum around the theme of the environment, the fragility of it, and man's past, present and future impact on it. We actively collect used paper and cardboard through the efforts of the Recycling Club- run by 6th grade students. Every Thursday, each team reports to their assigned grade level to collect paper from that area. Paper is then brought to a central collection area and then picked up bimonthly by Browning Ferris Industries.

Our 6th graders were recently introduced to recycling volunteers Brian Towns (a chemist who seperates hazardous waste at the Sturbridge Recycling Center) and to Tony Celluza (chairperson of the Sturbridge Recycling Committee). They discussed the town's present efforts with recycling and why they have been so successful.

Sixth graders are now required to visit the center on one of two prearranged dates for a tour of the center. They will be required to map the center and also to present a written report with answers to 10 prearranged questions. This is an integral part of this term's science grade.

Recently, we purchased 500 vermi-composting worms. These are hybrid worms which eat cafeteria waste, as well as coffee filters and cardboard. They were purchased with money collected by redeeming aluminum cans collected by the 6th graders in the cafeteria after lunches. It is the students' responsibility to keep them fed weekly. Presently, they eat approximately 1/2 pound of food per week. We also are involved with aerobic composting. Each 6th grade classroom has a composting bin outside their room and children deposit food scraps into it frequently. This will eventually produce humus.

Once a year in the spring, our 130 students take a trip to Avery Point, Connecticut. There, we board the "Envirolab" and sail out into Long Island Sound. There we examine sea life which has been collected by our students by hauling it on board using nets. Students look for evidence of pollution on fish, do salinity studies on water samples and chart various figures collected by using hands on equipment.

We hope to start collecting clear, green and brown glass from students in the cafeteria setting for eventual recycling at our town's recycling center.

We foresee our students being environmentally concious adults concerned with the health and well being of the planet.

Exploravision, sponsered by Toshiba, is a competition to encourage K-12 students to combine their imaginations with the tools of science and technology to create and explore a vision of the future.

Each team must choose a present technology, explore what it does or how it works and how, when,and why it was invented.

We, Kristan Ploski, Jenna Commito and Nicole Mancini, became interested in this project from a Physical Science teacher at Tantasqua Regional High School in Fiskdale, MA.

We chose the very interesting topic of Recycling. We began by writing the history of our technology. We learned about major breakthroughs and consequences of recycling. We also researched present technology and learned where different materials go to be recycled. This was the research part of the project.

The creative part of this project involved inventing a future technology to improve the chosen technology. We invented the technology called remote recycling. This new technology involves a remote control cart that has capsules to hold recyclable materials such as paper, plastics, glass etc. The cart sends the capsule down a chute where it travels to a nearby recycling center. The capsule is emptied then returned to the cart and is then ready to carry another recyclable to the center.

We also had to write about breakthroughs that would have to be made for our new technology to exist. A section on consequencesof our technology was also required.

Completing this report changed our idea of recycling immensely. We are now very serious about it.

State REAPS

By John Alphin

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) awarded $75,000 to MassRecycle in January to bring solid waste education and technical assistance to public schools through the Recycling Education Assistance for Public Schools (REAPS) program. Many of us and our schools have received brochures about REAPS but not enough of us have been taking advantage of this great program. Nicole Cirillo from DEP spoke at our annual SCRAM meeting about REAPS and all present seemed to be interested, but only Katie Bennet from Hubbardston Elementary scheduled a teacher training on composting and vermiculture.

Katie already has a composting program at the school but found the workshop led by Bill Stanwood from Fundamental Action to Conserve Energy (FACE) very helpful. Bill is the REAPS provider for our area and he can be reached at (508)345-5385. Please take the time to read over the REAPS brochure enclosed and call Bill for more details on these free programs. Bill said "we are very interested in going out to schools to provide technical assistance to set up composting bins or paper recycling programs."

Bill recently worked with me to set up teacher training on composting for 5 area schools and it was hilarious as well as informative. It might have had something to do with the fact that we were meeting after school on the Friday before school vacation but I think it had more to do with Bill's teaching style. Bill started us off with a game that tested our nonverbal communication skills that quickly brought the group together and he continually encouraged our participation. He had us playing games from the curriculum folder he provided, as well as sharing serious details about composting nitty gritty. Bill recently helped the Clark school in Worcester build ten worm observation bins with a plastic viewing side as detailed in the book "Wonderful World Of Wigglers". The kids loved this activity. Some of the schools are designing composting programs for the entire school lunch waste.

Leslie Badham from the Regional Environmental Council (REC) will talk more about the REAPS programs May 16 at our first SCRAM meeting devoted to area teachers. Leslie has been working with Bill on many of the REAPS presentations and is excited to share the council's vast library of curriculum materials with our group. Don't let your recycling teachers miss this meeting.

SCRAM Meetings

Leicester Recycling

by Ruth Kaminski

The hardest part of my job as recycling coordinator for the town of Leicester is containing the over- whelming enthusiasm of the 40 plus volunteers that run the 200 cars an hour recycling program in a town with no landfill or transfer station. People are amazed at the number of recyclers coming and going at a facility in a town that does not mandate recycling.

Liecester recycling stands out because of its never tiring volunteer force and its acceptance of items out of the ordinary. The volunteers have taken great pride in finding a place to reuse or recycle items that the citizens have brought forth in the form of a request or that they have noticed as being wasteful. A large corporation changed it's roof cat walks from pressure treated lumber to steel and the lumber will be used on the Worcester, Leicester, Paxton, Holden trails project making look out stations and walkways handicapped accessible. A partnership with Massachusetts Easter Seals filled the void in what to do after short term use of crutches, canes or outgrown children's similar items. Eye glasses and their cases are recycled through the Lions Club to third world countries. Unbroken plastic flower pots are recycled to area nurseries. Every other week when we are open there is a frenzy over used books that reminds one of a Filenes Basement fire sale. Recently a group of Girl Scouts began sorting the children's books out of the boxes they come in. They will be sharing those books with underprivileged children in Massachusetts assisting them in establishing a home library which is something none of them would otherwise have the opportunity to do.

I have worked in the human services field for more than 25 years and many of the recycling volunteers have had similar job experiences. As a result it was natural for us abutting the "needy" City of Worcester to provide for them a service they often are too busy to provide for themselves. The Leicester Recycling Center urgent need (U-need) Hot Line (508) 892-3121 guarantees service of requests in 48 hours. For four years the center has provided such things as winter coats, clothing, blankets, sheets, and utensils for shelters for homeless, battered and others who are in a situation of urgent need. One call to the hot line puts into action a phone chain that within 48 hours can if necessary reach as many as 500 people!

The 5 cent returnable bottles and cans donated to the center support the packaging of the plastic operation. We estimate recently that we processed enough #1,2,3 plastic on an average 5 hour Saturday to fill 125 fifty five gallon drums! This past Saturday we filled a 30 yard rolloff container in 5 hours with mixed paper, two 15 yard dumpsters with nonaluminum metal cans and another 30 yard rolloff with corrugated cardboard.

My favorite task is to coordinate the juvenile offenders referred to the center by three courts, the Alternative Sentence Program at Y.O.U., Inc. and the Leicester Police Department. We recently had 15 young adults referred for ten hours each. They complete there service hours after a 1/2 hour orientation where they listen to an explanation of recycling in general, the operation of the center and the fact that all the people working so hard there are volunteers. This is where I earned my nickname "Ruthless". Three of the juvenile offenders have ended up coming back to work as volunteers.

Students from area private schools volunteer at the center and earn school credit for doing so. What is remarkable about this program I feel is that the high school students who are often on the honor rolls are working along side of juvenile offenders who often have difficulty getting through school without quitting. When the two groups get together magic happens and each walks away better for having participated.

The Highway, Fire, Ambulance and Police Departments are all very supportive of the program. The Highway crew takes care of our parking lot in all kinds of weather often getting out of the trucks to help us shovel, sand and salt. The Fire crew has formed a partnership with us and the HazMat Team will collect paint in June, July August and September of this year. They are a unionized department and they have volunteered their time for this program and the associated training required. The Ambulance crew maintains our fantastic first aid station at the center. The police cruiser is always visible, driving through the center when we are open and more importantly when we are closed. For years the Chairman of the Selectman was a paper sorting volunteer.

Our volunteers reach out into the community lecturing in schools, apartment buildings and at local business establishments. They assist in setting up a recycle plan to lessen the trash removal costs. One of our recent successes was a seniors complex that went from two to one trash container by recycling. They are using the money saved for recreational activities.

One last point of interest involves our new middle school which is making a path through the forest to the recycling center. They will venture out to the center as part of a classroom science assignment. We look forward to their participation in our program in the future for they know recycling works and won't have to work as hard to prove this to their peers.

Call Your Legislator - Expanded Bottle Bill

Call Your Legislator Ask for their support!

Expanded Bottle Bill (S.398 & H. 1818)

Put simply the Bottle Bill works.Massachusetts consumers return for deposit and recycle80% of our beer and soda containers- nearly 1.7 billion cans and bottles every year, making the bottle bill the single most effective recycling law on the books. According to one plastics recycling executive,"Of all the plastics collected, 98.2% of it comes from the 9 states that have mandatory recycling deposit laws."

The bigger the bottle bill, the more bottles and cans get recycled. In 1990, for example, Maine expanded its bottle bill. Since then, the number of containers being recycled in Maine has grown by 50%.

We can now build on the success of the bottle bill and expand recycling in Massachusetts

Please see the enclosed MassPirg Bottle Bill campaign brochure asking you to write a letter to the editor . Make a difference by dropping a line to your local weekly and daily paper ..

State Recycling Report Cards

By John Alphin

Great Scott! The Municipal Recycling Report Cards released in March were received with a different attitude this year thanks to all the preliminary work done by Scott Cassel from the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs and the Dept. of Environmental Protection. All those meetings and mailings across the state paid off. More towns knew how to fill out their report cards and so more did. We were given the same formulas for figuring problem areas like composting.

The SCRAM Towns I talked to put a lot of effort into completing the report card and will do better solid waste tracking throughout the year.

For those of you who missed our March Data Tracking meeting and still want help setting up a tracking system call me at (508)867-9491. We had a number of good examples from around the region ranging from handwritten lists, to computer spreadsheets and database systems represented.

Last year eight of our towns had incomplete report cards so they showed a great improvement this year and the rest showed modest improvement. I have included a list of the results with hopes that we will be encouraged by our successes and learn from them.

*Hardwick accepts recyclables from New Btaintree and Oakham.

Fitchburg Deinking Mill Goes On-line

By John Alphin

After touring Northeast Recycling Associate Corp.'s $235 million dollar, 440 ton per day deinking mill in West Fitchburg it is easy to understand why it has taken so long for industry to build these deinking mills. This is the second plant built to produce high quality recycled pulp, suitable for the printing and writing grades in the nation. The first was in Virginia. Massachusetts Recycling Associates and Northeast Recycling Associates Corp. joined forces to retrofit the former No.8 mill they purchased from James River Corporation. The huge size and complexity of the plant and the infrastructure to collect the 220,000 tons of sorted mixed office waste paper needed to run the plant in a year is awesome. The Newark Group of which North Shore Recycled Fibers is a partner will be providing 90% of the sorted office mix paper for deinking. They will be looking to get this paper from within a 500 mile radius of the plant which will provide us with a market for this grade of paper well into the future.

Computers are involved in running everything from the modern machinery in the plant to inventory control. Every bale of paper coming into the plant whether by indoor rail lines or truck unloading docks is given a bar code sticker. This identifies where the bale is from, it's weight and any other data necessary to billing, receiving and storing the material. The plant has in house storage for up to five days of incoming waste paper backup and expects to unload 38 trailer loads a day. These bales begin their transformation on a conveyor belt where they are broken open and checked for contaminants as the paper is fed into a pulper (huge blender) that breaks down the paper mechanically and chemically into pulp fibers. The pulp is pumped up and down through three floors of the plant equipment. First through screens and kneaders that start to strip the ink from the pulp without damaging the long fibers. Next floatation tanks separate the ink from the pulp and then centrifugal cleaners further separate any remaining ink. At the end of the deinking process the water is pressed out of the pulp and it goes into a state of the art Swiss paper press. This huge press is run by computer and after a football field length of rollers press and heat dry the pulp, it comes out the end as a thick paper with a 10% moisture content. This finished pulp because of its low moisture content can then be cut into industry standard sizes and baled in 500 lb. bales for storage and shipment. Twenty truckloads with 22 tons a truck will be loaded and dispatched with this finished baled pulp each day. The plant will run four shifts a day, 24 hours a day, 350 days per year.

The plant has its own waste water treatment facility with a primary clarifier that settles out solids and a secondary biological digestor (bugs that eat the waste) before being sent into the Fitchburg Waste Water Treatment Plant.

I look forward to seeing this plant working up to its capacity.