It’s getting easier to recycle in Coronado. We don’t have to clean and sort items like we once did; today, we “commingle” it all and let our city’s waste and recycling contractor, EDCO worry about sorting it all out.

Do we even remember the days we just put out our trash and it was hauled to a “dump?” Think way back to the ancient year of...1988.

My, how much we’ve changed. Dumps are now landfills, their quantity and availability in small supply, and their linings and coverings carefully regulated to prevent runoff of toxins into groundwater.

Coronadans are leading the way in recycling efforts, says John Snyder, vice president and general manager of EDCO, the waste and recycling company founded by Snyder’s family, more than 40 years ago. Based in Lemon Grove, EDCO handles trash and recycling for 11 of the 18 cities within San Diego County including Coronado and also has contracts with municipalities in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Snyder says that Coronadans can be proud that they have exceeded state mandates for recycling.

The recycling effort throughout the state of California started in earnest with passage of AB939 in 1989, which required mandated diversion of waste products from landfills in the amounts of 25% by 1995 and 50% by 2000. Coronado has far exceeded these goals and in 2006 (the most recent reporting period) posted a 54% diversion result.

A new bill has been introduced to the assembly requiring diversion levels of up to 75% in future years and several jurisdictions, such as San Francisco, have voluntarily increased their diversion goals in advance of statewide action.

Larger containers this May

As Coronadans have increasingly gotten the hang of recycling, the current 16-gallon green recycling tubs have been heaped ever higher with materials; trash cans have correspondingly been going down in volume.

To keep pace with consumers’ recycling and to encourage even more, EDCO is introducing a 65-gallon commingled recycling container with a hinged lid that can be wheeled, rather than lifted, out to the curb. EDCO’s trucks automatically lift and tilt the containers to dump their contents into the recycling trucks. For residents requiring additional recycling capacity, a second recycling container would be provided at no charge.

Coronadans may keep their green recycling tubs if they wish or turn them in to EDCO drivers.

Sorting through it all

Now that residents don’t have to separate their recyclables, you might wonder how all that dirty work gets done. Just where does all this stuff go and where does it end up?

After picking up the recyclable materials from Coronado homes on each designated “trash” day, EDCO’s recycling trucks head just across the bridge to a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in Lemon Grove.

The materials are dumped onto concrete floors inside EDCO’s large warehouse and forklifts carry the materials to the entry point of a six-foot wide, three story conveyer belt and screening system. Along this system, items are sorted in a series of steps, including mechanical devices and sorters of the human variety. In fact, human hands are the first to touch the materials, where workers pull out large items in the ‘pre-sort” line such as large whole glass containers, and metal items such as propane tanks.

A series of progressively smaller screens then sorts materials.

Cardboard is the first item to be separated and includes everything from product packaging to shipping boxes. Next, newspaper, the most common recovered material, is screened out. Last year, EDCO recycled 130 million pounds of newspaper. Next, mixed paper — a combination of office papers, junk mail and other fibers — is separated, leaving just hard goods. Most of the paper products go to China and other Asian countries whose burgeoning industries and population pay top dollars for a commodity not readily available in their relatively lightly forested countries.

Tin — mostly in the form of canned goods such as soup and coffee cans and pet food cans — is sorted using a magnetic belt. Next, PET plastic is sorted using a high-tech optical eye sorter which then spurts puffs of air to pop up the plastic into a separate bunker. This form of plastic can be recycled into fleece jackets, food containers and other plastic bottles. Once that bunker is full, the plastics are bailed. PET #2 colored plastics can also be recycled into items such as toys, tableware and piping.

Aluminum is sorted, using a reverse magnetic process. Aluminum cans are the most valuable products in the recycling stream and are bailed and shipped throughout the United States and the world where they are recycled into new cans.

Glass is the final item on the line and is sorted by colors.

EDCO is one of the few recycling companies that is also tackling the challenge of construction and demolition waste recycling, which accounts for about one-third of the trash in landfills. At a separate facility, the company recycles such items as concrete, carpet, wood and drywall. Wood is used for fuel in electric plants; drywall can be used as soil additives.

All in all, EDCO’s “family” of trash and recycling haulers, plant workers, and administrative staff are proud of the work they do, says the company’s Director of Communications, Yvette Snyder. Many of the employees have been with the company for 15, 20, 35 years and more.

“It’s fulfilling work,” says Snyder. “Our employees feel like they are making a difference in our communities and for our environment.”

EDCO’s motto is “We’ll Take Care of It.” And they surely do!