Textiles in the waste stream
May. 31st, 2018 09:17 amI’m still poking around at a largely unrelated waste stream question I have (questions, actually): where does treated sewage go? The recent poop train story suggests that that is an increasingly contested area. I know that Deer Island sends its output _somewhere_ off island to a landfill or landfills, but I can’t figure out where (usually, that’s intentional when websites don’t have that information readily available — they’re trying to limit local outrage / NIMBY action so they don’t lose that disposal site). Along the way, I was startled to realize / remember / think about the fact that landfills send their leachate ... back into the nearest public sewage treatment system. This thing is circular! Also, as long as that is happening, then doing much with the treated result can be tricky. Even if you reduce the biologicals, you are still stuck with things like cadmium and other troublesome elements. And the switch from chlorine treatment to reduce the biologicals to UV does not interact super well with processing leachate. Who knew? Anyway, until I figure out a way to organize that particular rats nest in my brain, I figured I’d proceed to something much more straightforward.
http://www.waste360.com/waste-reduction/early-efforts-tackle-mounting-textile-waste-part-one
We do not have textile recycling through WM locally. I wish we did! We do have the Middle Class Guilt Reduction Station a quarter mile down the road, so that’s something. But reading this, it sounds like we’re about ready to ramp up a mechanical sort and reprocess solution, a la what we did when we finally got serious about plastic recycling. It’ll probably involve entirely too much shipping overseas, tho, which could get complicated in a hurry if at any point the current shipping destinations decide enough is enough.
http://www.waste360.com/waste-reduction/early-efforts-tackle-mounting-textile-waste-part-one
We do not have textile recycling through WM locally. I wish we did! We do have the Middle Class Guilt Reduction Station a quarter mile down the road, so that’s something. But reading this, it sounds like we’re about ready to ramp up a mechanical sort and reprocess solution, a la what we did when we finally got serious about plastic recycling. It’ll probably involve entirely too much shipping overseas, tho, which could get complicated in a hurry if at any point the current shipping destinations decide enough is enough.