Page 12 RAIN The Great Recycling Race Success of the Ore Plan Almost no one believed it when Portland recyclers claimed it would be possible and economical to get _householders to keep their trash separated, to pick it up with pushcarts and small vehicles and recycle it directly-thus eliminating the need for mammoth and expensive mechanical sorting systems, saving money and energy, and providing more jobs in the process. A big order! Yet it works, and works well enough that more than 30 ORE Plans are now starting around the country. Many cities, and even the EPA, are beginning to look seriously at this ridiculously simple mini-system that outperforms the biggest and best technology around. The following is an excerpt from Prof. Richard Duncan's upcoming Compost Science paper on the ORE Plan. See the Jan.-Feb. 1976 issue of C.S. ($6/yr. from Rodale Press, 33 E. Minor, Emmaus, PA 18049, single copies $1 postpaid). His earlier ORE Plan article can be found in the Jan.-Feb. 1975 C.S. (Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 24-32). Portland State University's Prof. Duncan has been shepherding these neighborhood recycling organizations through the city-county-state-federal political thickets, providing the researched, academic analysis and conceptual background that is needed to keep a working "small is beautiful" technology in front of waste-management decision-makers. We've listed over 30 local ORE Plan recyclers and resource people on page 14 in case you want a nearby contact person with whom to work on your own hometown ORE Plan. Figure 1: The Alsport UT-10 with trailer (10 hp., 1000 lb. total capacity, $2,300 from Alsport, Inc., 84 Whittlesey Ave., Norwalk, OH 44857) The Ore Plan in Portland The ORE Plan started in 1974 when Sunflower Recycling, Inc., extended their operations by using a small hand-pushed cart to pick up grouped recyclable wastes from homes in the community. Wastes collected included paper, bottles and cans, which were later sold to secondary materials markets. Later, a separate experiment added organic wastes, which were composted and used as a soil conditioner in local gardens. More than 50% of the households in the community participated in this 10-month experiment. In March 1975 Sunflower began using an Alsport UT-10 vehicle with a trailer for home collection, as shown in Figure 1. The positive results of this project led to the design of an alternative garbage collection system where the main financial base would come from collection fees. The ORE Plan is now a full-line garbage collection service where recyclable materials are kept separated by householders r:: c'd u r:: ::l a ...c:: u i and small-sized vehicles are used to pick up both recyclable wastes and mixed garbage at one visit. ORE Plan organizations are designed to be financially self-sufficient and pay fair wages to all workers. Collection fees, averaging 20 to 40 percent below fees for standard service, provide the main economic base and are supplemented by income from the sale of secondary materials. Figure 2: Pick-up of Home Separated Waste with "Satellite" Truck and Trailer In May 1975, Cloudburst Recycling, Inc. became the first new ORE Plan based business. Recycling collection fees averaged about $3 per home per month, compared to about $5 for standard collection service. Their strategy for obtaining an initial set of customers was to canvass households already known to be doing recycling. Over 80 percent of the first seventy households contacted signed up for the service. The community serviced by Cloudburst is a relatively flat area about 1-1/2 miles long by 1 mile wide, containing about 5,000 single-family residences. Cloudburst is now serving about 100 families in this area, representing a collection density of 1.5 percent. Waste materials are collected by two people using a small pick-up truck with trailer as shown in Figure 2. The truck acts as a "satellite vehicle" to a large van truck parked in the neighborhood where materials are temporarily stored, reducing collection costs by lowering gasoline consumption. A recent "net energy" analysis by David Beaton, former director of the Oregon Energy Study, indicated that the ORE Plan was first among the nine systems studied in terms of overall energy-efficiency. Basic collection fees range from $1.50 to $4 per month in January 1976, with over 50 percent of the subscribers preferring weekly collection of all their wastes. Collection times to serve about 80 customers have ranged from 3 to 5-1/2 hours. These hourly figures include backyard pick-up of wastes, breaking bottles into containers and personal attention to customers and potential customers, but exclude lunch and rest stops. Cloudburst estimates that two workers, using a pick-up truck and trailer, could collect from 150 households in 8 hours, including the time needed to transport wastes to markets or disposal sites. An estimated 2,800 pounds of wastes were collected from 80 households, of which more than 50 percent by weight were recycled. Income derived from the sale of recyclables is currently between $0.55 and $0.75 per household per month. The potential gross monthly income from a Cloudburst-type recycling operation is estimated at about $2,700 per month. r:: c'd u r:: ::l a ...c:: u -~
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