There’s a local recycling company in my province, called Revolution Resource Recovery which has a recycling model that seems really progressive: two bins, one for organic waste that will be composted and one for everything else. Apparently they will process all waste and recycle as much as possible without the home/business owner needing to do any non-compost materials sorting:

Here’s their statement:

We simply request you to put your organics in a clear or otherwise compostable plastic bag which is placed in a large “Organics” bin. Everything else goes into another bag or bin marked “Commingled Material”. […] You will note that we have not mentioned a “garbage” or “waste” container. That is because when you deal with Revolution, nothing is ever considered discarded or abandoned by you. We are going to pick through it until we get everything of value out.

They also claim they will depackage compostable materials from plastic, so you can bag compostables in clear plastic bags or even leave food waste in packaging. They summarize the procedure here. The site I linked also mentions that they also produce and sell beef which is apparently tied into their custom organic waste recovery procedure. Specifically, they produce compost and use part of it to grow crops, some of which is in turn used to raise cattle, all on their own ranch. Which, any vegans here want to weigh in on if using them for organics waste management would be considered vegan or not?

They’re even really self aware of how ineffective most plastics recycling is and outline what they’re doing about it, they have similar descriptions for other recyclable materials.

I personally tried to contact them about the specifics of how their commingled materials recovery facility works and how exactly they separate recyclable materials but they wouldn’t tell me anything. The optimistic side of me thinks that it’s probably because they have custom procedures which are trade secrets, while the pessimistic side thinks they’re not answering because they have no procedures and are lying.

This company is very common in my city, Vancouver, Canada, especially their commercial services. I see their dumpsters behind all kinds of strip malls and businesses in general.

Does anyone know anything more about either this company (I understand that’s unlikely) or what they claim to be doing in general? If what they’re saying is legit, then they are the most progressive garbage management company I’ve heard of, if they’re legit.

  • @pancake
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    23 years ago

    Well, all that manual sorting seems brutally expensive to do… I would believe them if it weren’t for this, unless they actually have a way to automatize at least some of that labor.

    • @AgreeableLandscapeOP
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      3 years ago

      There are other companies in my area (and the rest of the world) that do commingled recycling where all the recyclables are put in one bin. I’ve just never heard of another company doing that combined with non-recyclable waste in one bin. I have read some literature that suggests that due to improper sorting on the customer side, even separate recycling streams need to be sorted again (presumably with less effort than fully commingled, though) if the company wants to recover all the materials while avoiding contamination, or they just check each bin or truckload and if it’s too contaminated, they toss the entire contents as non-recyclable.

  • @yxzi
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    3 years ago

    That company can’t really make promises without mentioning a scale, so there’s certainly something fishy about this whole business. Also the claim “We are going to pick through it until we get everything of value out” sounds like pure marketing as I highly doubt that will be manageable on a larger scale. And what about hazardous materials like batteries or paint, wouldn’t you at least need to separate that from the rest somehow? So there seem to be plenty of issues that are left open for some reason we don’t know, and more transparency is needed here for sure.