Monday, February 12, 2018

Trip to Transfer Station

Our A block APES class took a field trip to the local transfer station on Saturday, February 10th.  In Andover, the town of 3,000 residents our transfer station is relatively small but it holds a lot of different components to dispose of our waste.


Trash Station: The trash is thrown into a machine that crushes it and then it goes into a container that will be filled, weighed and transported to the Boscawen incinerator which means that it will be burned. The town pays to get rid of the trash by weight “so” Alan said, “ we are paying for the weight of that newspaper that could be recycled but we have to pay for recycling too.”

Recycling (no glass): The recycling station had a similar concept, it crushed the recycling into a container. On the wall next to it was a poster with directions on what could be recycled and what could not. I was confused why glass could not be recycled but then we went to the glass bin.



(taken by CM)

Glass Recycling: The glass recycling was a dumpster with a mixture of glass bottles and the snow that had fallen earlier that week. Alan explained to us that it was a really heavy product and “ costs a lot to move it around [and] there is no real market for glass because there is so much of it.” But he then went on to explain that they were inventing new ways to use glass, like in the pavement around campus. As I through my two bottles in I wondered where they would end up. Would they be put in the pavement or melted into new bottles? It got me questioning why we as a society make single serving containers. A very simple solution to the amount of waste we produce is to not produce it. But a solution like that is not something that would be likely seriously considered.


(taken by CM)

Products contain mercury (mostly e-waste) and swap table:  Inside the shed that was in the middle of the yard contained two different stations. The majority of the room was taken up by what looked like a yard sale. There were all sorts of second-hand goods, everything from dictionaries to baby toys. A transfer station is not cheap, the town has to pay to get rid of all its waste, “ a great way to avoid costs is to rescuing stuff,” Alan said, so people can drop off things and pick up things from here to reuse. In the corner of the room was some old electronics that if put in the hopper would leak the dangerous chemicals like mercury, so it is transported is a place where they can take it apart safely.


The rest of the station where, Metal Recycling (white goods) which “costs about eight dollars to get rid of,” Alan informed us. The metals we can make money off of which helps pay for the transfer station.


(Taken by CM)

Construction Debris is where the waste goes that you can’t separate easily, “it will have foam and flame retardants in it,” Alan said. Proctor has on of these dumpsters behind the hockey rink. Then we moved on the Yard Waste/food waste pile which will be burned but is not against the Clean Air Act on such a tiny scale. Then it was on to the tire trailer which I had encountered in the fall when my team and the community service team collected 48 tires off the rail trail and brought them to the trailer. Tires can be easily recycled, a great example of that is Proctor’s turf fields which are covered in tiny bits of tires. Then we walked over to our last stop which was where they put the hazardous waste like paints, antifreeze and other chemicals. The most shocking thing I saw on this trip was the black oil leaking on to white snow. It was shocking to see how haphazardly these hazardous chemicals were being taken care of. 


(Take by CM)

My overall opinion of the Andover transfer station is that it is a good operation considering how else we could be approaching our waste. I grew up in Andover and in my wanderings, I have come across piles of rusting metal, glass and plastic, the Blackwater River is filled with rusty metal. I have always figured that those piles were built up over years, but seeing all the cars pulling in and out of the transfer station and seeing the huge dumpsters filled with trash I saw how fast that we generate waste. At the end of the day I went home and looked into my trash can, in it was bits of plastic, orange peels, and coffee grounds. Someone had just taken out the trash and we were already filling up the next bag. What I took away from this trip was that while it does not impact the world in a major way I can do my part by reducing the amount of waste I produce.

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