Recycling: the process and the problem

For my final story, first I thought I would only do a process story with great videos and natural sounds; only focusing on how does it really take to manage a recycling plant and what are the things that are involved in it. However, after talking to Mark Naef, owner of Naef Recycling, I wanted to add another angle to it, which is, why don’t people recycle. In order to prove and see if it was really true I went downtown and talked to local people about this problem.

December 5, 2008 - It’s a long but simple process to recycle at Naef Recycling. Mark Naef, the owner said that he has a dual stream recycling, which is where “paper goes into one bin and plastics, metals glass goes into another bin,” said Naef.

Every morning from 5 or 6, the haulers come to dump the waist in 4 different bays, where it goes up to the conveyors for people to sort them.

“We get about 160 tons of materials everyday,” said Naef.

Recycling is something that everyone should be doing but without enough recycling bins, it limits people’s opportunities to recycle.

Ron Quinn of Syracuse said that he is sometimes frustrated when throwing out bottles and cans.

“I don’t see recycling bins, I only see regular trash bins…There should be a green and brown one right?” said Quinn.

On the other hand, some part of Central New York is different. Jane Labrizzi of Liverpool said, “I live in Liverpool and we are lucky we have such good facilities. It makes it very easy [to recycle].”

But, downtown Syracuse is not doing so well.  “Maybe there’s something new [recycling bins] but for a long time there hasn’t been much downtown,” said Labrizzi.

If you want to hear more of what people had to say about recycling downtown, watch the following.