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WasteXpress of Rhode Island News

13-Apr-05

Quonset Point Plant Is State's Recycling King

The Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation is using Toray Plastics Inc. as an example to get more Rhode Island companies to recycle their wastes. 08:59 AM EDT on Wednesday, April 13, 2005 BY PETER B. LORD Journal Environment Writer NORTH KINGSTOWN -- At the sprawling Toray Plastics Inc. plant in Quonset Point, 600 people work around the clock amid towers of raw materials, endless stretches of piping and boxy production buildings to produce 10,000-pound rolls of the plastic film used to package popular snack foods.

Daniel Landry, Toray Plastics Inc. senior purchasing agent, shows Sherry Giarusso-Mulhearn, executive director of the Rhode Island ResourceRecovery Corporation, where the company recycles its mixed paper yesterday. It is one of the state's biggest, busiest industrial complexes. Yet the grounds are as neat as a Newport mansion.

And to protect the manufacturing process from contaminants, visitors have to pull paper booties over their shoes and step into an "air shower" designed to blow off stray particles.

The company's efforts recently won it ISO 14000 certification, indicating it meets certain international standards for minimizing the environmental impact of its products and services.

Yesterday, Toray was touted once again for its environmental efforts --this time for doing more than any other company in Rhode Island to recycle waste and reduce what it sends to the state's Central Landfill for disposal.

Sherry Giarusso-Mulhearn, executive director of the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, the state agency that operates the landfill, visited with the midlevel managers at Toray who launched its recycling efforts and told them she intends to hold up their efforts as examples for Rhode Island industry.

"This is a very large company. We recognize there are many demands placed on a corporation this size and we realize waste handling often doesn't get the attention it deserves," said Giarusso-Mulhearn. "But we want to hold you up as the model -- the crown jewel."

It is difficult to imagine plastic from a bag of Fritos weighing much. But Toray has long recycled the scraps that go into making that film. Last year, it recycled 6,500 tons of polyester and polypropylene film.

But also last year, thanks to an initiative by Jim Ladouceur, a process engineer, and Daniel Landry, Toray's senior purchasing agent, the plant recycled another 890 tons of corrugated cardboard, wood pallets, office paper and bottles and cans discarded by employees at meal times.

That new recycling amounted to 44.6 percent of all the wastes created by the plant, excluding the film.

Landry estimated the recycling may have saved the company about $5,000 in fees charged by the Resource Recovery Corporation for dumping at the state landfill in Johnston.

The two joked about the kidding they get at the plant for becoming the "recycling police."

"Jim will go into a restaurant and ask if they recycle their bottles," said Landry. "If they don't, he puts the empties in his wife's pocketbook and takes them home."

It took some time to get employees used to recycling, they said. So at first, they pulled bottles out of trash cans and chided people to use the new recycling bins and baskets.

"We had to break an employee mindset," Ladouceur said. "They thought it all ended up in the same place at the end of the day."

Giarusso-Mulhearn said all it takes to make recycling work is for one person to step forward and get things started. That's just what Ladouceur and Landry did.

"We do it at home and we figured we should want to do it here," said Landry. "Plus it's a cost savings for us."

Legally, all of the state's businesses are supposed to recycle. In reality, few do, according to Jim Allam, the Resource Recovery Corporation's deputy director.

Communities were required to institute recycling programs in 1996 and most have done so. Some, such as Warwick, are successful.

During the same period, the state passed regulations mandating that businesses file recycling plans and follow them. The state Department of Environmental Management was delegated to be in charge and it had as many as 10 people assigned.

Most businesses didn't even submit a plan. It was difficult for small businesses to justify. Some faced increased costs from refuse haulers. Others saw no benefits.

According to a new statewide waste-management plan now being developed, DEM found it "impractical, unrealistic and impossibly difficult to obtain widespread compliance in a cost-effective manner."

DEM transferred its employees to other duties.

Meanwhile, commercial waste amounted to about 57 percent of the 1.2-million tons of garbage brought to the landfill last year.

Giarrusso-Mulhearn said the trucks dump their loads in a vast building where three people work full-time pulling recyclables from the garbage.

"It's discouraging because we recognize how much paper and cardboard is in the waste stream," she said. "It's sinful."

The people working on a new state waste-management plan acknowledge in a draft that mandatory commercial recycling simply doesn't work. Instead, they recommend that the Resource Recovery Corporation adopt a system of providing technical assistance while promoting and rewarding companies that do recycle.

Some of that new strategy was used at Toray.

The Resource Recovery Corporation provided several thousand dollars worth of recycling bins and yesterday offered promotional literature for employees. The agency will do a waste audit for any firm and provide recycling advice. It also offers a Web-based program to help companies find users of its recyclable wastes.

The Toray people also credited WasteXpress, a Cranston disposal company, with making recycling easier by fabricating a special 30-yard disposal container and providing other equipment.

John A. Souto III, of WasteXpress, said sooner or later all waste haulers will have to accommodate recycling. He's doing so now to get a jump on the market.

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