[OT] Information security, recycling and irony

[Michael ODonnell]

I once toured WMI facility (that used to be?  is still?)
in Rochester NH.  I did this primarily because I'd heard
a number of people around town (Chelmsford, MA) muttering
about how WMI probably just threw all our recyclables into a
hole instead of actually processing them.  For our visit we
dropped in essentially unannounced so I believe that what we
saw represents the way things actually run there, and I've
since heard other reports that sound pretty much like mine.

Executive Summary: They do NOT just throw it all in a hole.

(This was at least 10 years ago so my recall may be imperfect)

A small but efficient group of workers handles the various
streams of materials coming in from the towns.  It is way,
very, extremely, HUGELY more efficient for those streams to
be separated by the customer.  For example, paper that's
not co-mingled could be pushed into a palletizer by a guy
in a BobCat and within a few minutes of arrival that bundled
paper would be forklifted into trailers waiting to head off
to the pulpers.

Mingled materials need to be separated, a process that's not
really been automated very well.  The mingled recylables are
dumped onto a very long conveyor belt that passes a number
of stations.  Ferrous metal items are levitated off the main
belt rather spectacularly - they fly up and are stick to
another belt that's upside down and a few feet away, directly
overhead, then routed into a trailer headed for a smelter
(probably overseas, I gather).

After that, though, the main belt just travels briskly past
a gang of humans wearing goggles and gloves.  Behind each of
them is a half dozen chutes and as the belt moves along they
grab things and fling them blindly over their shoulders,
with impressive accuracy, the various glasses, plastics,
papers and metals each going into their own chutes.

The stream is dramatically reduced in volume after that and
IIRC the belt terminated by poking out through an opening in
the side of the building where the unrecyclable stuff fell into
a trailer that would periodically cart it over to the landfill.

Oh, yes - the landfill.  On that WMI site was also a landfill
with an impermeable clay/plastic liner which allowed them
to collect and process the leachate and prevent groundwater
contamination.  It was capped and piped such that they could
recover enough methane generated by the landfill that they
fueled turbine-powered generators which IIRC produced enough
power for the entire site and surplus that got pushed onto
the local grid.  That was the good news.  The bad news was
that it was almost full and they didn't know where they
could site another...