November/December 2002
As single-stream collection spreads across the country, the scrap paper industry wonders whether such commingled curbside programs will produce more paper or just more headaches.
By Robert L. Reid
The scrap paper industry is torn over the issue of single-stream residential collection. Single stream is the curbside-collection approach in which all of a household’s recyclables—from old newspapers and other paper to glass and plastic bottles and aluminum cans—are lumped together in one container rather than presorted by the household or sorted at the curb by the hauler. This commingled material—set out in containers ranging from the traditional “blue box” (which can be any color, actually) to the newer large wheeled carts with lids—is only sorted later, after it reaches the local material recovery facility (MRF).
While single-stream collection is credited by many with increasing the volume of recyclables recovered, including fiber, it’s also blamed for boosting fiber contamination rates, sometimes to levels that get the paper downgraded or rejected by mills. Internationally, single stream has even raised questions about the general quality of U.S. fiber.
The good news/bad news continues with reports that single-stream collection dramatically reduces the costs of collecting recyclables for municipalities and haulers—perhaps by as much as 25 percent or more—but increases the costs of processing the commingled material. What’s more, though the screening and cleaning equipment necessary to process single-stream material does exist, it’s not cheap—the investment can range from roughly $1.5 million to as much as $5 million. Many in the industry see this as a major barrier to competition for the fiber generated through single-stream programs.
There’s certainly no lack of competitive views regarding single-stream’s pros and cons, with many municipalities and haulers advocating the approach and plenty of mills opposing it—and various scrap paper processors finding themselves stuck somewhere in the middle.
Gaining Steam
The single-stream movement is relatively new, having started in the western United States in the early 1990s, with Phoenix often cited as the first single-stream city. Even a few years ago, “you could still count the number of single-stream processing facilities on two hands,” notes paper industry analyst Bill Moore of Moore & Associates (Atlanta).
More recently, though, a combination of factors—ranging from advances in technology that separates fiber from commingled streams to growing pressure on local governments to cut collection costs—have boosted the movement. Today, there are about 85 facilities around the country that handle single-stream material, notes Eileen Berenyi, president of Government Advisory Associates Inc. (GAA) (Westport, Conn.), a research and consulting firm that reports on recycling and solid waste issues. Those 85 facilities represent 16 percent of the roughly 530 MRFs or mixed-waste facilities across the nation, she says.
At the moment, single-stream facilities are concentrated in certain geographic regions, with some 55 percent in the West, 29 percent in the South, 13 percent in the Midwest, and only 3 percent in the Northeast, GAA reports. But the movement is growing—another 15 or so single-stream facilities will be developed over the next two years, GAA estimates—with greater interest in both the Midwest and Northeast. Bill Moore also sees single stream gaining steam, noting that many of the five-year contracts for MRFs currently being considered are moving toward single stream.
Such growth is evident in the experience of one large paper consumer that has seen its supply of fiber from commingled sources increase fivefold or more in the past decade (though single-stream material still represents less than 15 percent of the firm’s total raw material). As a result, the mill has been forced to reject shipments and even temporarily stop buying from certain suppliers whose single-stream fiber did not meet its quality specs. As one of the mill’s executives notes: “Mills must be capable of handling more contamination periodically, but we’re not going to accept it long-term.”
A Crystal-Clear Problem
For many mills and scrap processors, the benefits of extra fiber collected through single-stream programs are more than offset by the increased contamination that results when paper is commingled with glass and plastic. One mill estimates that while single-stream collection can yield a 16-percent increase in the amount of recyclables recovered, it also produces fiber with a residue rate of 20 percent compared with 5 percent from many multiple-stream systems.
GAA reports roughly similar numbers, with the average single-stream system producing 17-percent residue and the typical dual-stream system having 7-percent residue. There’s also tremendous variation in the contamination rates of different single-stream programs, with some reporting residues far below the GAA average and others having residue rates of 25 percent or more.
What’s crystal clear, however, is that glass is the leading contaminant in single-stream fiber, wreaking havoc throughout the paper industry in terms of employee safety, equipment maintenance, and product quality.
“Glass is poison—poison for the processing systems and poison for the mills,” asserts George Elder, vice president, materials management group for SP Recycling Corp., the fiber collection arm of Atlanta-based SP Newsprint Co.
“It gets into everything,” adds Tom Lyon, owner of Vista Fibers, a scrap processor with three facilities in Texas and two in Louisiana. Vista Fibers experimented with single-stream material a few years ago but later dropped one such program entirely and, in another case, convinced its suburban Dallas suppliers to return to multiple streams, Lyon says. Also, the supposedly sorted material it buys from another commingled source “still gives us fits,” he adds.
The wear-and-tear of glass probably costs $500,000 a year in equipment maintenance and replacement parts, says Pete Grogan, vice president, market development at Weyerhaeuser Co. (Federal Way, Wash.). Though Weyerhaeuser handles only a small amount of residential paper, the company is concerned about the trend toward single-stream collection—concerned enough to warn one of the cities where it does process residential fiber that it could no longer take that material if the city switched to a single-stream system, Grogan says.
Another mill points out that glass shards from single-stream scrap paper are difficult to clean out of the trucks or railcars it uses to both collect recovered fiber and ship out finished product. Thus, the outbound new paper can easily be contaminated by the same glass that contaminated the incoming scrap paper.
Glass is such a problem, in fact, that at least five recently built single-stream MRFs have opted to exclude glass from their programs while a number of older programs are thinking about pulling glass out of the commingled mix, notes GAA’s Berenyi.
That’s an approach that appeals to George Elder, whose parent firm—SP Newsprint—has paper mills in Dublin, Ga., and Newberg, Ore. Though the Dublin mill doesn’t accept single-stream fiber, the Newberg mill does. Why the difference? Because the Newberg mill draws its fiber from the Portland area, where a so-called modified single-stream system excludes glass.
Elder stresses that SP Newsprint isn’t opposed to single-stream systems per se—just to those systems that can’t keep contaminants out of the fiber. He’s encouraged, though, by the fact that some scrap paper processors have begun investing in technology to separate glass from fiber.
Still, Elder and others also note that while glass is the worst contaminant, it’s far from the only problem that single-stream fiber poses for the paper industry.
Questions and Concerns
Other concerns include plastic bags, plastic containers, foil, even hypodermic needles. Plus, mills can have problems when one grade of fiber gets mixed with another. Chipboard and brown kraft are two such undesirable grades for certain consumers.
These various contaminants create an expensive headache. SP’s Dublin mill, for instance, uses more than 2,000 tons a day of recycled paper. At a relatively modest 10-percent contamination rate—considered a good result for some single-stream systems—the material would cost SP roughly $20,000 a day, or more than $7 million a year, when market prices and freight rates are considered, Elder explains. Plus, the mill then must pay to have the contaminants hauled away and landfilled.
The problem, of course, is that once all these contaminants are commingled with recovered fiber, somebody has to pay to remove them—and the options aren’t good for either processors or mills. It can come down to a choice between having processors install a $100,000 automated sorting system or having mills install a $100-million drum pulper, says Remy Esquenet, director of fiber recovery and utilization for the American Forest & Paper Association (AFPA) (Washington, D.C.). Not surprisingly, neither option is appealing to the parties who’d have to pay. Also, not all mills can use a drum pulper in their processes, Esquenet adds.
At presstime, AFPA was analyzing data from a study it recently sponsored comparing fiber from single-stream systems with material collected in dual-stream systems. Preliminary results indicate that material from single-stream systems is indeed more contaminated to the extent that “a No. 7/8 news from a single stream is not a No. 7/8 news from a dual-stream system,” Esquenet says.
Despite such contamination, it is possible to process commingled material well, Esquenet says. The best systems are those that keep the glass and fiber separate, and those in which the material that’s sorted automatically at the front of the line then goes through another sort at the end. “The ones that make this extra effort—even though the material’s already gone through the standard sorting and screening programs—are ending up with a better product,” Esquenet says.
The high costs of building a single-stream MRF or processing single-stream material also make some in the industry worry about competition for the fiber—or rather, the lack of competition. After all, few if any markets could support competing MRFs, while the number of companies able to effectively build and manage even one such facility is not large. When one Northeast community switched to single-stream collection, for instance, six firms reportedly expressed interest in setting up the MRF, but only one submitted a bid.
There’s also concern over single stream’s anticompetitive impact on processors, many of whom might have to choose between making expensive and perhaps risky investments in new equipment or else be shut out of a particular region’s fiber. It might not be a threat for those working in smaller, rural markets—Bill Moore estimates that a single-stream operation must handle at least 200 tons a day to be economical—but it’s a growing reality for those operating in urban and large suburban regions.
How Many Options?
So, what can you do if your suppliers go single stream?
Export has always been one option for processors. Indeed, there seems to be a mindset that almost anything made of fiber can be sent overseas, especially to China, whose low labor costs have made hand sorting a viable option. Unfortunately, that attitude is running up against a changing market.
“The new mills coming on in China are state-of-the-art, high-tech facilities,” notes SP’s George Elder. “So they’re going to have limits on the contamination they’ll tolerate, too.”
That’s something broker Jimmy Yang of Bayside International Industries (Los Angeles) has experienced firsthand. Yang, who exports paper from both single-stream and multiple-stream sources, says he sees a dramatic difference in the quality of the material—so much so that he’s had to drop certain single-stream suppliers who couldn’t meet his quality standards. The reason is simple: Contamination in U.S. fiber—largely because of commingled collections—has become such a problem that some Chinese buyers are turning to cleaner material from Japan. And when the Chinese do buy material, they’re not afraid to knock down the price. Yang once faced a $75,000 claim on an 800-ton shipment.
If China starts demanding higher-quality fiber, though, where will the commingled paper go?
Some domestic consumers seem to be gearing up for quality problems by investing in equipment to handle commingled fiber. Other mills stress that virgin pulp is, at least today, a relatively cost-effective alternative, especially if they have to search harder and farther for clean scrap paper.
At SP Recycling, using more pulp is definitely an option, though the company is currently focused on recovering more scrap paper from unmingled sources. “We’re aggressively expanding our drop-box programs to make up for the tons we’d have been happy to buy from a curbside program if the quality was there,” notes Elder. SP is also investing in front-end loading trucks and containers to promote old-fashioned paper drives, which the company hopes to extend anywhere in a 500-to-600-mile radius of its Georgia mill.
Another solution is to keep glass out of commingled collections. That’s what City Carton Co. Inc. does at the MRF it operates in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The company collects glass through separate drop-off sites, thus keeping the fiber and glass separate.
After trying a commingled approach, Gainesville, Fla., decided to separate its glass and fiber by adding a second bin solely for paper. During a pilot phase of the two-bin approach in 2000 and early 2001, the city saw the total amount of collected recyclables grow 25 percent while overall contamination fell 89 percent. For SP Recycling, which processes Gainesville’s recovered fiber, the switch was the solution. Under the completely commingled approach, SP couldn’t send Gainesville’s fiber to one of its mills, Elder notes, “but when the city converted to two streams, we were able to take it.”
A recent comparison of various curbside collection methods in St. Paul, Minn., reached a similar conclusion that dual streams can produce more fiber with less contamination—and at lower processing costs—than single stream.
Going With the Flow
Of course, some processors find that going with the flow of single stream is also a solution. In California, for instance, Allan Co. has been successfully processing single-stream material for more than five years from much of Los Angeles, San Diego, and dozens of other cities in the region, notes Stephen Young, president. Single-stream programs cover 70 percent of California today, Young says, and within a few years will encompass the rest of the state. Though handling single-stream fiber is more labor-intensive and requires a “heavy investment” in automation and sorting equipment—Young estimates he’s spent nearly $5 million, including the cost of a building—the result for Allan Co. is more than 1,000 tons a day of clean fiber that even critics of single stream point to as one of the nation’s largest and best-run efforts.
If that $5-million price tag seems daunting, keep in mind that other processors are equally satisfied with smaller programs. About two years ago, Great Lakes International Recycling (Roseville, Mich.) spent roughly $1.5 million on equipment to upgrade its processing of single-stream material from the northern suburbs of Detroit, says Sandy Rosen, vice president. In addition, Great Lakes plans to buy an optical sorting system to separate marketable clear glass from the broken mixed glass that single-stream collection generates. The sorting system—about a $200,000 investment—should pay for itself within two years, Rosen predicts.
The ability to handle single stream was vital to his company’s supply base, Rosen explains, because local haulers were increasingly moving away from the curb-sorted material that Great Lakes previously processed. “The trucks like to dump it all in one spot, so if they have to take containers to another place they’ll dump the paper there, too,” says Rosen. “We were beginning to lose material.”
Though preserving supplies was at the heart of Great Lakes’ switch to single-stream processing, other companies have seen their overall volumes expand from similar moves—and even found new markets for the resulting extra fiber. Homewood Disposal Services Inc. (East Hazel Crest, Ill.) operates a MRF for suburbs on the South Side of Chicago, collecting curbside material with its own trucks and accepting material from other haulers as well. Switching to single stream helped the company eliminate some of its own trucks while increasing its overall volume from a couple of thousand tons of fiber a month to roughly 7,000 tons now, notes John Pausma, vice president of recycling.
While it can be tricky to inform mill buyers that you’re switching to single-stream material, Homewood took a proactive approach, Pausma says. The company invited consumers to visit its plant and see the separation equipment in operation, plus the firm conducts its own quality sampling “so we know exactly what we’re sending the mills,” Pausma explains. As a result, Homewood didn’t lose any customers after switching to single-stream processing and instead found new customers who could use its additional tonnage.
It’s a positive story—and one that others in the scrap industry might like to repeat. At the moment, though, the future is uncertain and, therefore, somewhat unsettling.
Precarious Position
Consider the situation for E.L. Harvey & Sons Inc., a processor in Westborough, Mass. Though the company doesn’t handle any single-stream fiber, it did hold a seminar on the topic in late September, sponsored by the Massachusetts Recycling Coalition. Speakers included representatives from a nearby paper mill, a manufacturer of automated sorting equipment, a leading single-stream waste hauler, and a New York county that recently moved to single-stream collection.
Why the seminar? Because the single-stream trend puts his firm in a “precarious position,” says Ben Harvey, an owner of E.L. Harvey & Sons. On the one hand, his suppliers—municipalities and their waste haulers—could decide to adopt single-stream collection because of the reported cost savings and efficiencies. “But on the other hand, I’ve got my mill buyers that are not anxious to take single-stream material or won’t take it—period,” Harvey notes.
Moreover, E.L. Harvey wants to upgrade its current processing equipment within the next one to two years, but the company isn’t sure what to buy. It’s a potentially expensive dilemma: Investing in single-stream technology could cost more than twice as much as simply upgrading the company’s existing multiple-stream systems, Harvey explains.
But what happens if E.L. Harvey makes that larger investment only to have, say, half of its suppliers stay with systems for two or more streams while the other half opts to go single stream? “We could put a lot of money into a system that’s capable of doing what we don’t need it to do,” says Harvey, adding, “I honestly don’t have an answer now.”
Editor’s Note—ISRI and the Solid Waste Association of North America (Silver Spring, Md.) are working together on the single-stream issue, addressing the concerns of processors, consumers, haulers, municipalities, the public, and recycling in general. For more information, contact Tom Tyler, 202/662-8516.
Robert L. Reid is managing editor of Scrap.
As single-stream collection spreads across the country, the scrap paper industry wonders whether such commingled curbside programs will produce more paper or just more headaches.