Bridges to 18 minutes after 11 will bring Bob Potter back in here for the remainder of the program that we plan to do in the first place. I guess who by her Reckoning is half an hour early because she thought she was going to be on at noon instead of at 11 which is all well and the day is on of course Monday through Friday, and I don't know I can barely keep it straight myself to tell you the honest truth. Anyway Kathy is the super supervisor the solid waste program in the Minnesota office of Waste Management in our topic today for the rest of the hour will be recycling waste reduction household waste composting and things like that Kathy. Thank you so much for coming in.At least bye-bye what you thought one of the things that I am really curious about. Is this band now on on sending yard waste off to the garbage dump? As I understand that this yard waste is it decomposes? It is a recyclable in the way and yet people can't send it off to the jumping and it would seem to me that if that's what you would want to send her. The doctor stuff is recyclable outside mowing your lawn and somebody came up to you and said, I want you to dig a hole in the ground and I want you to put Clay on the bottom and I want you to put pipes to collect any leachate that might come out of that that hole and I want you to take all your grass clippings and leaves and dump it in that hole and then I want you to put more Clay on top of it. So no water can go through it. And then I want you to put some more grass seed in soil on top and grow a nice cover. You would say. Well that's ridiculous. But that's exactly what landfill operators are saying right now landfills are very expensive. To design engineer and operate and it doesn't make any sense to have a resource which is so easily used for other items such as building soil going into our landfills. So as a result the legislature band yard waste disposal at landfills and Ed incinerators for other problems by 1990 in the metro area, which was January of this this year and then 92 in Greater Minnesota giving the out state area a little more time to to reach that goal. So it's precisely because it's biodegradable that they don't want the landfills exactly we can use it to build up our soil in our garden or in our Lawns their farmers who are using it as as an item to land spread and improve the tilt of their soil And it doesn't make sense to to pay the extra money that it cost to send it to a landfill or to pay to send it to an incinerator when yard waste and leaves are relatively wet and don't burn. Well. What do you think people ought to do about attention to try to make up their own compost piles? I thought compost piles were rather a large smelly Affairs attracted Road and somewhere most unsightly. Well, if you were a gardener, you know that that compost is really your black gold. And the first thing that people should do is try and not collect grass clippings leave it on your lawn like the golf courses do mow your lawn mower frequently and keep those grass clippings on there and you can have a beautiful lawn and save yourself some effort as well. If you insist on collecting your grass clippings and collecting leaves and self-worth setting up a backyard composting system is pretty easy and there are quite a few Really nice compost systems on the market with with different kinds of barrels or basically boxes where you can put your compost in and just let it sit for a year in the next year. You have nice organic material for your garden or your lawn. As far as recycling itself is concerned how much is going on in Minnesota? And what kinds of things are being recycled recycling was going on. I'd have to say quite frankly not very much in the last year we've seen the number of curbside programs go up from about 46 to 119 Statewide. That's an Amazing Leap in the amount of recycling that is available to Citizens as well. We've seen more more drop-off centers going in rural areas. So people in the rural areas are having access to recycling programs as well part of it is due to the governor's select committee on recycling in the legislation that passed last year to basically mandate goals that that Counties have to meet and Then give them money to to reach those goals do public education that kind of thing. The things that were saying recycled are traditional items paper Glass three different colors of glass Metals such as aluminum cans and tin cans and so forth, but we're also seeing a lot of newer items being recycled such as used oil lead acid batteries household batteries things that we would consider more problem materials that we know aren't good in a landfill aren't good enough in the incinerator and don't belong in a composting system either and so we're seeing more and more recycling of those kinds of materials as well or topic is recycling today on the day. And if you have a question for Kathy moger from the office of waste management will open the phone lines. The Minneapolis-Saint Paul area number is 227-6002 to set 6000 in the Twin Cities Elsewhere One 806-529-7001 800-652-9700. How's the market for these recycled products for the glass in the paper and all the rest of it. It kind of depends on our own economic situation in the nation the recycling markets following economic Trend so they rise and they fall right now the market for glasses very stable the market for Metals. It is basically pretty stable but declining slightly the market for newspaper is just starting to rebound after a very low swing where we're at newspaper people were paying sometimes one or two dollars and sometimes charging to take that material depending on their own situation. We have a question here about recycling. You're on the air go ahead with your question. You know what the recommended procedure for disposing of household batteries and old medications are thank you. It depends on where you are right now in the metropolitan area, but there are programs that are starting up to collect household batteries. You'll see little buckets white buckets in retail stores that are taking those batteries and you can drop off your batteries there. If you're not in that situation, then I'm afraid you have to put them in your regular trash as far as old medications. Generally the recommendation is to if it's a liquid to a sewer it basically flush it down your drain if it's a other kind of medication, you should wrap it a newspaper securely so that no one else can get into it and then dispose of it in your regular household trash in the case. Does the batteries if you find those little white buckets, what what do the folks to pick up a little white buckets then do with the batteries? Will they ship them back either to the manufacturer or to a Refinery who takes out the the metals from that and and makes new products? What's the matter with household batteries when we want to just dump them in the garbage? Well household batteries have quite a lot of of mercury and cadmium which are heavy metals that are toxic to human health. And so we're trying to get those out of the incineration system out of the landfill system. So they're not polluting our air or ground water. The day will come when that's what they'll do is send it back to a refiner to pull those Metals out or will they make the batteries out of another type of material? It won't be so harmful. If I think we're seeing a little bit of both manufacturers as a result of the concern over over Mercury and cadmium are starting to look at Alternatives like zinc and make Are batteries or reducing the amount of mercury or cadmium to the lowest level possible and then refining the rest of that just about Recycling and those phone lines are wide open at the moment to 276 thousand in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area to 276 thousand. If you want to talk about recycling today tomorrow being Earth Day at timely Sunday for you and other parts of going to start of the toll free number is one 800-652-9700. Office paper it doesn't seem to be recycled in a great extent though. Is it yet. Depends on where you are if you walked into the State Office Buildings, for example over the legislature right now. You can see quite a bit of office paper being generated and all of that is recycled. There are there are Benz throughout the state office system for recycling those materials and by the end of next year. They're actually be Benz for other materials glass and metals as well. We're seeing that a number of offices that are getting into office paper recycling simply to cut their disposal cost and this helps the whole recycling movement because the office paper is highly recyclable and as well. Where are saving landfill space Minnesota paper manufacturers used this recycle paper in large part or is most of it set out of state. Actually. We have two very good markets here in Minnesota Waldorf Corporation in St. Paul uses that to put liners on on cereal boxes and other things that they make and so that is a very good use for that. We have another broker in Minneapolis that that ship's it all over the nation and overseas. Okay. We have a number of folks here with questions now and Recycling and we'll put you on first with Kathy mobile. Hello there. Hi, how are you? What's your question? Comment about the household battery. If you were discussing in Hennepin County currently were collecting only the button batteries primarily silver oxide in the creek oxide and we've got the possibility of collecting the alkaline felt the standard ones that people use in Poison still on but they're so little mercury left in them that there's no way to recycle it and it just have to be landfill. Anyway, we also discovered that we had overestimated the amount of mercury in the cells that are sold in Hennepin County by a factor of about 140. And once we do the arithmetic calculations correctly, we find that we would be getting less than a hundred pounds of mercury if we can like it all The Alkali self buy think it's important to distinguish the difference between different types of batteries. And then it seems to me that for quite some time it is it is not been legal to dump them in the in the landfill is not right. That's correct. And if you've gone to buy a battery recently you would have found us. Special sign saying that you must return an old battery within 30 days or pay a $5 surcharge. Basically that is to increase the amount of batteries that we recover. We find that when LED prices are high and retailers are actually paying for the batteries, then lots of people return batteries when they aren't paying such high prices than people tend to to not return them and we want to keep that led out of the environment. So we've instituted this $5 surcharge next question on recycling from you. Go ahead please get a 5 star Using aerosol can because I know that they're bad but what do I do with the ones that I have in my possession now, how do I dispose of them the problem with aerosol cans and good for you for stop using them is that they're not recyclable. They're not that great an incinerator situations either because they're in a place where they're being shredded and then burned and as you know, her metal doesn't burn very easily. So as a result of the aerosol cans that you have now generally have to go into the trash system if you're buying the pump sprays in And switching or substituting from the aerosol containers many of those are plastic and that plastic is recyclable. Aluminum pop can is recyclable high winds are Skullcandy that get the product out into the environment and as a result there very hazardous for people to recycle if you puncture those or or shred those you're basically in an explosive situation. They do say don't talk to her or throw in the fire by member that much pain next question. You're on the air. Hello. I'm calling from Rochester Minnesota. And I have a question on composting on 75 years old and I have very much difficulty turning compost. In fact, I just can't do it. So what do you suggest for composting? Well, you might want to try my lazy man's method and this is what I do for my own garden. I'm basically too busy to turn my own compost pile. So what I do is is pi is pilot in layers with with brown material like grass or like leaves and dead grass and then green material like fresh grass from lawn clippings are kitchen waste vegetable peelings, and I just let it sit and it takes a little longer. Sometimes I don't get compost for a year or two a year and a half but in the end, I've got a nice compost that I haven't had to do much work for. Next question on recycling Kathy motors with us and you're on the air with your hello. organic compost resource for a long ways to be able to spread glass as I understand it to an even higher grade resource would be sewage sludge Minnesota. We met a lot of money just to burn it off. I had a business associate who set up a program for the state of Maryland about 10 years ago. Were they composted all their sewage sludge in there was a huge market for it to sell it up and down the east coast in Florida. They would come up and get back to to use any orange groves for fertilizer in the local gardeners with music. Is there been any thought of setting something up like that in Minnesota Wild Minnesota does have some sewage sludge composting operations that they're pretty small at the moment. We've explored the possibility of of composting are mixed garbage with sewage sludge and found out to work quite nicely. In addition. We have some some are there are some entrepreneurs actually that are doing pilot projects. The Metropolitan Waste Control Commission to compost yard waste and sewage sludge and different materials to see which is the most feasible. I would expect to see more composting with sewage sludge in the future as well. There's other things that are going on across the nation it like Milorganite in Milwaukee is is basically a sewage sludge product that's dried and then sold for people's Lawns or Gardens or whatever and I would expect to see more of those types of projects going online as we begin to have more and more sewage. I remember you respond to the question about the use of recycled paper in Minnesota. How about glass is that pretty much set out of state or do we have glass manufacturers here? PA Anchor Glass and they make sometimes refillable bottles, but mostly the one-way bottles for beverages. So we have a very good strong Stable Market in Minnesota for glass. Would you prefer to see more returnable bottles or or is the recyclable one weighs a better way to go? Well, the state has a hierarchy for managing Solid Waste in it. It's based on not only the economics of of handling waste but the resource conservation associated with that and our first priority is to reduce waist and one of the easiest ways to do that is to buy refillables because when you buy a refillable, you've made an initial investment in the deposit for the container, but you bring it back over and over again and it's refilled they're not having to make new containers. So if you can look for refillable Pop & Beer and also Rafael herbal milk, which were leading the nation right now in in using refillable milk containers, so I'm quite pleased about that. Kathy mortgage with us and the recycling question for you now. Hello. Plastic bottles in that they were recyclable and I'd like you to describe more about how Plastics are recycled and and then maybe get into what it means to be biodegradable. I understand that there have been some controversial o products not not product advertisements about Plastic Products to stay there biodegradable, but really aren't unless they're exposed to Sun for a long. Of time. And I was just wondering if you could maybe describe how Plastics are recycled and what it means to be biodegradable Plastics recycling is something that I would say is just in its infancy right now Plastics have always had a very good Market but the type of plastic that was recycled was basically coming from the manufacturers scrap from their processes what we found as as more and more packages are moving to Plastics were finding Plastics increasingly in our Solid Waste stream. And finding out that some kinds of plastics are not the best thing to have as a result. Those manufacturers have banded together to start recycling programs for Plastics. The biggest thing was Plastics is trying to find a way to collect them. They're lightweight and they take up a lot of space and as a result, it's real hard to get them on the trucks. But the City of Minneapolis and all of Hennepin County are making a pilot efforts in this area and they'll be starting later this summer plastic recycling. I think it is an area where we're going to see a lot of State activity and we're going to see a lot of local government activity just because of that the amount of the solid waste stream it represents one of the plastic that's not such a good deal at the moment is biodegradable Plastics and there's been a lot of of marketing of of degradable Plastics by the manufacturers of Plastics that are contained in corn starch as a way of supporting an agricultural Market or those that are highly littered tend to use photodegradable those that supposedly are degradable by sunlight. In fact, we basically have found that neither one of them to grade in any amount of time that's useful for either litter or land disposal and it doesn't matter in incineration land disposal if you remember my description earlier is basically An unopened envelope you've got clay at the bottom clay at the top and you got the garbage in the middle as a result. There is no light. There is no air coming into that and those are things that the microorganisms need to eat that corn starch and as a result in the landfill situation, there isn't a lot of biodiversity biodegradation going on before 12 Kathy motor from the Minnesota office of waste management is with us as we talked about recycling today. What about the the baby diaper issue and some of the claim least disposable ones are biodegradable. Is that a lot of nonsense? But in a way, yes, because as I said that the diapers really don't degrade in a landfill environment. There's not enough time for those organisms to be able to do the things that they need to do to degrade it. The ideal situation is to use a diaper service a cloth reusable diaper. It sounds like it's painful but it's not I have a two-and-a-half-year-old and I I use cloth diapers and disposables. And what I find is that the cloth diapers are really better for her and in addition there cheaper than using disposables. Plus, I don't have to pay for the garbage Casas. Well, once I have that the cloth. Cloth diaper services have made it really easy for people to be involved with them. You do the same thing that you do with a disposable diaper you roll it up and you said it in a container and you set it outside and they come and pick it up or even that is cheaper than using disposable Sivan having a service right and think how much you save if you did it yourself, but let's not get into that. I don't do your question, please. Hello there a recycling pick up there one of the first places to do it, but the only thing that's kind of a problem is they don't take plastic bottles and every time I go to the grocery store more and more jars and Bottles East Bay glass are made out of plastic and some products. You can't even get the glass bottle or jar anymore because they've almost called and manufactured in these plastic containers, and I just wonder why we Call this environmental concern why is industry continuing to replace glass containers with plastic? That's the first question second one is I see so many old tires around. Is there any place or any type of recycling service that could pick up these unsightly old tires that attract mosquitoes in the summer because they get water in a Min Pin all their unsightly in people's yards and I just want to find out your response on that. Thank you. Well, we've been seeing a trend towards plastic packaging away from Glass and Metal for quite some time. It's accelerating in the past few years primarily because of the energy costs glasses are a relatively heavy material to ship and it does have breakage and plastic does not it's lightweight. It's easy to ship and and doesn't break an in-transit as a result. We've seen that that going towards plastic and what We had to do on the back end is try and figure out ways to deal with that as far as what I do on a personal basis is when I when I go to the grocery store and I can't find a product and plastic. I do two things. Number one. I write to the manufacturer and tell him I'm unhappy that that it's in plastic and then I'd prefer to have class or something that I can recycle in my recycling program and second. I tell the retailer because they make in large part the decisions on what goes on the shelf and what doesn't know about the question of Old Tires Tires are a problem that we've had for a number of years. I'm sure you've heard the news about the old Tire dumps where people have been bringing tires from it any number of your person and disposing of them in that way by the state has a program to clean up. These old Tire dumps based on the number of tires that are in those dumps. Caswell has funded some demonstration recycling or Market development programs to try and find ways to reuse the old tires. There's a test area up near St. Johns that is using old tires mixed with asphalt. And so when you drive over the highway on 10 near Saint John's you actually driving on unreal used tires. In addition. There's a a facility up in Babbitt Minnesota that is collecting tires and and creating new products like Auto bumpers and so forth out of out of old tires, and then the pollution control agency has just issued a grant to somebody and in southern Metro Minnesota to look at the feasibility of new products for that. It isn't there a state law regarding the disposal of old tires similar to the battery law very similar that the retailers Have the option of taking it back from you. And and what they generally do is charge you for their collection cost. They have to pay to get it up to the facility that's going to either reuse it or recycle it but they they they can charge you for taking the old tased to be they give you a little something for the old Tire 15 minutes before the motor is with a shoes director of the solid waste program in the Minnesota office of Waste Management. Our topic is recycling today. Will you pretty well work their way through that first series of collars if you have a question for her, the number is 227-6002 to 76000 Minneapolis-Saint Paul elsewhere within the state of Minnesota. The toll free line is one 865 to 9700 North toll free lines are open at the moment. Thanks for waiting your on with Kathy now. Hello there. Hi, I had two questions. I'm from Minneapolis. I recently moved into a house and it's been working in my garden and I found lots of rock gravel and even a thin layer of concrete at one part that I've broken up and I'm wondering if that's recyclable and how I would go about it. If not, how do I dispose of it? Secondly, I'm wondering if there's any source of recyclable wood ships and where I might go about getting up. Okay on the concrete has is recyclable. Unfortunately, most of the recycling that seems to be going on right now is is a large-scale busting up highways recycling that concrete or that asphalt and then reusing that in some manner there are a number of those yards that are scattered across the Twin Cities metro area and you can find those in the Yellow Pages that might be one of the places that you want to look another is is if people are asking for clean fill, that's basically what you have there is is clean fill, although it's not something that you evidently want in your garden. And so you might try and find people who want want your your resource there on the sources of recycled wood chips. Will see more and more chipping programs going on with the municipal yard waste composting programs. A lot of them are buying shredders and chipping up brush and and so for that no longer can be disposed of in the landfill. You might check with your County Solid Waste officer to see if if they have indeed set up a program like that or can direct you to somebody who has all right. We'll move on to your question now Kathy Motors listening. Hello. I have to hang up. I have a dog and I collect up after him and I have all these little bags full of things. Well, I'm sure that they can be used for composting when I want to go to a special way. You have to handle them and the second question. I'm you mentioned something about purchasing commercial or or already established composting containers and things and I'm wondering if there are on some local sources that are particularly good for that. Thank you. On the composting of dog feces. It's not something that we recommend for compost that you're going to going to use and say a vegetable garden or someplace for human consumption. If you're going to use your compost for again for your lawn or 4. I'll say a flower garden. It's perfectly acceptable to put dog feces or cat feces in there. What you need to do is is be a little more rigorous and how you manage your compost pile. You can't use my lazy man's method of letting it sit for a year-and-a-half to destroy any of that the parasites or or disease is in the in the dog feces you need to water regularly and turn regularly so that lots of air get in there in the bacteria can do their work as far as the commercial recycling bins. I've seen them at a number of the lawn and garden stores here in the metro area as well. Quite a few mail-order sources. If you need to you can call the office of waste management and we can direct you to that and the office of Waste Management. Number I don't want to give out my number cuz I'll get a million phone calls. That's right. Let somebody else and then I'll get back to you. All right, you can call the call the state probably during during regular business hours, right Kathy. All right, we will take a 10 minutes before 12 your question. Hello. I'd like to know an old antifreeze or brake fluid battery acid and he's such a used to paint a car with how do you dispose of? With an anti-freeze the recommendation is to sewer it. It is a a degradable material that the Metropolitan Waste Control Commission can use and in Ark and disposed of in their their sewage system the rest of materials you mentioned. You should basically hang onto them until the next household hazardous waste collection program goes on in your area. There are being established right now permanent household hazardous waste collection sites in each of the Metropolitan counties, and they will be open all the time for people to drop off materials brake fluid as well. Yes, it is but one of the best ways of dealing with household hazardous waste of courses to buy what you need and if you can't use it all up try and give it to somebody who can and so Try and practice your own exchange methods and then if you can't do it, then you have to hang on to it for a while another issue for a backyard. Mechanics is old engine oil. Engine oil is is recyclable. And if you go to full service recycling or full service gas stations or some of the recycling centers have drop tanks for for engine oil and you definitely should not dump that in the sewer. Should you I know you can pull up quite a bit of ground water by by disposing of used oil down a drain or even putting it on your lawn or you're our roads. Okay. Another question now for Kathy you're on the air with her. Hello. How do I dispose of an old smoke alarm? It's got a label on it that says if there's a radioactive Source in it. Oh, that's a good question. And I actually can't answer it. Let me refer you onto the pollution control agency. There a number is 29663 and they would probably be better able to answer that question for you back to the household. Hazardous waste thing for just a second if brake fluid falls into that category. What are some other things? I'm sure everybody will paint and lacquer and Center in that sort of stuff probably is but some other common things that we might not think of it hazardous waste around the house while they qualify as hazardous waste in and actually many of our cleaning pro products qualify as head of household hazardous waste pesticides herbicides are all common examples of household hazardous waste and so people just hang out of that stuff and eventually they'll be a place to go take it right in the meantime, you might try and find somebody who can use Stop what what you don't need to. All right. I'm moving on now your question, please. Hello. Thanks for waiting. How about no place to recycle plastic bottles and I discovered through 8 and 8's in the newspaper that the Goodwill Industries don't take plastic bottles. Now, they take plastic detergent bottles milk jugs pop bottles and antifreeze and oil containers. Okay. Thank you for your observation there 7 minutes before 12. Traffic is recycling today with Kathie Molnar from the Minnesota office of waste management and another listener with a question now. Hello, you're on the air. I believe a two-part question lately. I've been seen on plastic bottles arrows going around a number for triangle shape and I was wondering what those two different numbers 1 to 5 is what I see if we don't have a curbside pickup. Do you have any suggestion where we could call for soft Plastics? Okay, good thing that you brought up the the plastic labeling system because I had forgotten to mention that in the last couple questions on Plastics recycling that's a way of identifying the different kinds of plastic that are available for recycling. It's a voluntary system that was established by the Society of the Plastics industry and it identify several different grades of a plastic. So when a recycling program is ready to say recycle a certain resin they all say to you the general public recycle only number sevens or recycle number twos and you'll be able to look at the bottom of any plastic container and see what kind of plastic that that is. Minnesota has taken the step of making that mandatory and the Minnesota office of waste management is currently in the process of developing rules for That cord is going to be applied to the container and how big it has to be in all those kinds of things. Isn't this whole thing getting pretty complicated. I mean if you start having two separate different kinds of plastics by number and then you got a separate Your Glass by color and you're not supposed to throw those shiny newspaper supplements in with your other newspapers. I mean pretty soon you're going to have to have a degree and waste management just to live in a house that that's right. We don't want to see get us to the point where you have to have 21 different bag sitting out on your Kerber or in your driveway. And so the trend is is that recycling programs are going to what we call co-mingled and you may still have three bins, but you may be able to put your your glass in your metal in one bin in your newspaper and all the other papers in another band and and Plastics in the third bin and what'll happen. Is that goes to a facility where where either mechanical Nearby hand they are separated out. And so we're trying to make it as easy as possible for people to be involved in recycling other than being a good citizen. Is there any benefit to a person for doing this? On a on a global scale I'd say Yes, actually on the national and state scale as well. What we're doing in recycling is basically saving resources and pretty scarce resources that that and so is a result every time we recycle we're making our individual contribution to the global economy. Okay, we have a couple more questions here in just about that much time for them. So you're on there now with Kathy motor? Hello? Oil paint cans were you know house paint where you have paint left over. Just how do you dispose of that when you might have something might be there? Okay, and what's your other one? And the other was I'd heard a comment to that one reason why they don't collect grass clippings and burn them in the incinerator Downtown Minneapolis is a fact that they do discharge chemicals that have been used in the lawn, you know, I mean is can get into the air. Okay, how about the disposal of the paint cans? First of all to have if it's a latex paint the best thing to do right now is to take the lid off the paint container and let that paint air-dry and then once it's dry, it can go can go into the regular trash either for incineration or landfill. For an oil base paint, you should really try and and reuse it give it to somebody who can use it or save it for a household hazardous waste collection program because oil-based paints do contain chemicals that we don't want to see in a landfill Hernandez cinerator on the yard waste question the chemicals that people put on their lawn or a concern no matter how the waist is managed you there by landfill or incinerator a composting and so we try and discourage people from adding chemicals to their lawn the primary reason why we don't want to have yard waste in the incinerator is the moisture content number one and number two it contributes to sulphur emissions from the incinerator last question. Very briefly. Go ahead, please thank you. I'm a bike commuter and a co-op Shopper and these two traits are becoming less idiosyncratic as they are. I'd like to know What prevents bulk foods from being dispensed on a large scale is in supermarkets? And also whether the state is doing anything to promote bicycle commuter Lanes on major traffic arteries are the first question is dealing with bulk foods and and we've just recently done some research for the governor select committee on packaging in the environment and we found that bulk foods are are increasing in in availability and that there are very few sanitation problems with bulk foods and their we will have to and Kathy. Thank you very much for coming in. Thank you. Supervisor is a solid waste program at the Minnesota office of waste.