Good Day Uncut: WM Philadelphia Recycling Facility

Philadelphia, we are uncut. Hey, it's meteorologist Drew Anderson in for Hank Flynn. This is Good Day Uncut. And a couple of weeks ago, we got to see where does your trash go? We went to a trash facility and see what happens to it. Well, today we're at WM's Philadelphia recycling facility. We're gonna see where recycling goes. When you put it in the bin, what happens to it? So we're gonna learn that over the course of the half hour. We're gonna explore how all of this works. And with that, let me bring in one of the employees right here. I want to see how everything works. Come on over here, sir. You've got to give me the lay of the land. Come on in here. I'm supervising this guy. I just want to make sure that he's doing everything. He's one of our best, so he's doing a really, really good job. How are you? Sir, you look a lot like Hank Flynn. Hank Flynn. He's one of our colleagues. He's been out. He's an incredibly handsome, wealthy, charismatic reporter who's mostly drunk. With a great head of hair. Oh. You even sound like Hank Flynn. True. So wait. This is where Hank's been the last couple months. Right. I've been up here at Waste Management in Tacony, everybody. Why not? You're going to do a little moonlight and you might as well do it with class and get the world straightened out, right? We're joking around. Hank is back. Uncut is where it should be. Drew, it's your show. We enjoyed filling in. That's your mic. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. You got it. For a yeoman's duty holding this thing up while I was gone. I had a broken leg. I tried. I was in a wheelchair. They were like, nah, it's a bad leg. Is it still broken? Well, no. Not really. Well, when you see me tap dancing, that'll be happening soon enough. Listen, guys, we're burying the lead here, and Drew, thank you. You got him. Jim Van Wert is here with us. And, Jim, you're in charge not just of this waste management facility, but of many of the others across the nation. You have a wonderful title. What is it? I am the Area Director of Disposal Operations. It's a pleasure to meet you. Guys, we're two years in. To what this facility has seen as a $40 million upgrade, and that's just for this facility. That's just this facility's version of something Waste Management's been doing nationwide. Fill in, what's the upgrade, Jim, and what do we all get out of it? Sure, so nationwide, Waste Management has invested almost $1.5 billion in new or upgraded recycling facilities. where we take in the latest technology for separating out material, whether it's through AI technology, optical sorting, or different types of screens. In Pennsylvania alone, we're over $100 million in investments between here in Philadelphia, the Lehigh Valley, and Pittsburgh. Our goal is to try to capture more recoverable materials out of the recycling stream every day, every day we process. And it's a thing that never ends, as you can see, guys. There's always backhoes running around here. That's why you wear safety gear any time you come on the property. I got mine on now. They said I could actually do the bit right here while we're on the grass, but I'm ready to go for when we do walk around. And you're not kidding. Look at this right here as they sort things. So things come in on the trucks, and this is where it goes. Yeah. No question about it. $1.5 billion, Jim. That's a colossal amount of money in anyone's book. Waste Management is a for-profit company doing this job as a business, as businesses all across the country should. Before you spend that kind of money, you've got to know what you're going to get out of it. Why did you all drop this kind of money? How does it change your facilities nationwide? And two years into it? How's it going so far? So far really well. It takes a little bit of time once you start these new systems up to make sure they're running at peak performance. And really what we wanted to do was capture more materials from the recycling stream. Thank you very much. Residents, whether it's here in Philadelphia or across the country, they want to see that we're capturing materials that can go to an end market and be reused, repurposed. Well, and you and I talked about this a little bit before. And think about it, guys, because Drew and I have both been Out to facilities like this and over the course of my life at least, I'm 29 years old, but over the course of my 57 years I've seen recycling go from nothing to a thing that people want to do to where we are now to where it's gotten ever sharper and at the end of the recycling trip there's always a little pile at the end of things that you just can't recycle or get rid of. The goal is to have no pile at all at the end, I'm guessing, but you're getting a smaller pile. Like, you're dealing with more stuff through these changes. Absolutely, we are. We're able to capture things that five years ago we couldn't, whether it's our Cups to Go program with national retailers where we're trying to capture coffee cups and soda cups and so forth. Thank you very much. Thank you. You know, we've got over 60 green-collar employees here. We're working every day to make sure that we're capturing more material. And then if we can't, we're pulling out the residue ahead of time so that our systems run more efficiently to there again capture more of the materials we want. Sure. Now, guys, right now we're looking at, what is this facility that we're looking at right here called? Is this the first point of contact for the garbage end here? Absolutely. So this is our receiving floor or our tipping floor. So this is where all the inbound material comes. And then we do a very quick pre-sort. Any of that material that we don't want that could come in, whether it's a hose or a big wheel, something like that, or a mattress that sometimes ends up in the recycling stream, we try to sort that out first. Not everything is recyclable. We're going to talk about... When you talk about that over the course of the half hour, not everything is recyclable. You think because we're looking at it, we see a lot of cardboard and things, but there's a lot of things that please don't recycle it, right? That's correct. Yep. So at this location, this is where all of the inbound material goes on our tipping floor here, where we start the process of the recycling. All right. There it is. Now, guys, this is not where the $40 million necessarily went. It's not underneath the pile over there. It's actually in that building over there. And what you're going to see is a conveyor belt that any genius on Sesame Street or any animator. Would be absolutely jealous of. We've got things to show you guys. We've also got good lessons on the non-recyclables. We've got one, two, threes for you on dropping off electronics, recycling electronics, especially those lithium batteries. Don't go anywhere, guys. We'll be right back with more Uncut. We are back. This is Good Day Uncut. Drew Anderson, not in for Hank Flynn. Hank is back. Uncut is where it should be. We missed you. Dude, I miss myself. I'm glad to be back, and I'm really grateful to you. You actually made me a little bit nervous a couple times I was watching. I was like, he's way too good. He's elevating the bar. How are they going to tolerate me? He's the man. We'll work our way through it. Thank you. You're the whole reason we watch. I mean, listen, me, Greg, Morgan, and Mike Jeeves have fun hanging in. And let me show you where we're at. So, we're at WM's recycling facility. We talked about where trash went a couple weeks ago when you were out, and we got to show where trash goes at a landfill at WM. Now, let me show you this, where your recycling goes. Hank, it's your show, sir. Take it away. Yeah. Jim, tell us a little something here, what we're seeing here. Has this already been somewhat sorted? I mean, you're talking... What are we looking at? So what you're looking at right here is our mixed paper. So this has already gone through the system. And then what we're taking out here is mixed paper that will end up going to a paper pulp plant. And they'll turn it into various types of either paper, cardboard, pizza boxes, could be anything. Now we should talk about what's making the decision. I don't care who your guy is or how good he is. If he's standing on a platform pointing at this object and that object, He's never going to do it as quickly as artificial intelligence, which is the brains behind the eyes of sorting all this stuff. Tell us a little bit more about how compressed air plays a role in this. Sure, sure. So this particular system has 11 optical sorters, we call them, which run off of imaging, AI technology, and then we use compressed air to actually separate out either the recoverable material or materials we don't want in a particular stream. We're looking at mixed paper here, we also sort for cardboard, we sort for the various grades of plastic, whether it's HDPE colored, HDPE natural, PET, or even number fives. We separate out, not with the optical sorters, but we separate out for metal and tin, and we separate out for aluminum as well. Alright guys, Jim Van Wart with Waste Management here. He's in charge of a lot around here. He knows a lot of stuff. Now, Drew Anderson right now is using an iPhone that's going to be powered by a lithium battery. A lot of what you can see going through here. The screw gun that your dad has out in the garage. Your 15-year-old's scooter. Make him wear a helmet. All of these things are running on lithium batteries. You're holding one right now, Jim. What is the safety and the wisdom on disposing of these? What should we do with them? So we should be taking advantage of various municipality programs for lithium battery take-back. So in the city of Philadelphia, there are events that are on the city's webpage. This particular battery that I'm holding here is from an e-bike. And then to your point, some of the larger... Big box retailers will have programs where you could take back your dad's lithium battery drill, drill for the battery. So there's different programs like that. Right. Fair enough. But you've got to follow that because this is still an evolving recycling technology. At least 10 years from now, we'll be dealing with it probably in a much more organized, regulated way. Absolutely. Very much so. Everybody, most municipalities right now are trying to figure out the best approach as far as recycling. Take back programs and so forth. We do not want them in the recycling stream. I understand it's plastic, but inside that lithium battery, that is a real hazard to, whether it's the collection people. No question about it. I wanted to ask Drew too, because Drew actually has good information, guys, on citywide electronics recycling. If you go to your city sites, you're gonna see a ton of different options for you, Drew. Yeah, so take a look at this. In Philadelphia and all across your different counties, communities, There are places to drop off e-waste, the batteries. Batteries are not recyclable. Do not put them in the recycle bin. And look, in Philadelphia, coming up this weekend, they rotate through different sections and neighborhoods of Philadelphia. This weekend, you can drop off batteries and hazardous e-waste this Saturday. In Port Richmond, all you got to do is just Google Philadelphia e-waste, and you get a vibe of that. And guys, I just got to tell you, it's good to know the stuff that you wouldn't think about. And Adrian... Let me see what you have here, because there's other resources to find out where you can drop off batteries, because you really want to keep them out of the recycling flow. Who's Allie right here? Why don't you look at a baseball card? Who's the owl, Drew? Give a hoot, don't pollute. Well, now it's skip the bin, turn batteries in. And we are standing behind the BatteriesSafetyNow.org website, a website that you can take time to put your zip code in and ultimately look where you can take your batteries locally to you. So your alkaline batteries and your lithium-ion batteries. That's great. It's weird, Woodsy the Owl, I used to actually confuse with the Tootsie Pop Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, a one, a two, a three. Jim, I gotta tell you, just looking at what you all have here, it's clearly, it doesn't Just looking at the signs, the machinery, the belts going around, I don't know how this is $40 million. It feels like more somehow. Heavy machinery like this always impresses me. You guys did your homework. It's a very educated purchase. Are you all more, I know you're still working with it, two years, maybe there's still even a lesson to learn. This has got to be a win for waste management. Are you all happy two years in? What's the look back? What's the report two years in? Yeah, I would say we are happy overall, but I'll tell you we're not just standing still. If there's another technology, if there's an upgrade to the computer, the AI, we're going to incorporate it. We have a team that does that research, and if it makes sense because we're going to get higher capture rates, we're going to do it. Yeah, no question about it, guys. As you look at this new technology here and see, Drew and Jim and I all dressed in full safety gear. Remember, it's got to be safety first with this many heavy moving parts flying around here dealing with, yes, your trash, my trash. Look, your sandwich was wrapped up in that just the other day, and there it goes. Guys, with this many moving parts flying around here, safety will always remain the number one priority. We'll be talking with Jim and other waste management officials when we get back right up here to Tarrytown with more uncut. To this advertising. And we are back. Hank Flynn is back. We're at WM's recycling facility in Philadelphia. Hank, that mic looks good on you. Hey, thank you very much. It actually works well as a boot in here. Okay, so we'll do a fit check here. From head to toe, he's looking good. And look, no boot right there. Well, listen, that's actually probably, don't point that out because as you can see from Rafael Hernandez right here. No, I mean like you were wearing a boot like for your leg. Oh, my bad. I thought you were talking about boots. I mean sneakers. They're letting us in You do have your boots they're not these are purpose-built boots these steel-toed boots you'll see other people wearing them I think they also actually diminish electricity as well. They remind me of the ones that railroad workers wear. Where are we now? We're just on the other side of things Rafael, but it's quieter and they're what looks like plastic paper bundled up into cubes What's the plan? Yeah, so this is the end of a process here for the recycling plant. These are our balers We have five of them for different commodities It allows us to, you know, bail all the material that we have caged after the separation process that we do here. Now, what you see are going to be different commodities. Like you mentioned, we have some grade A aluminum here, some film. We have some PET bales here. We have our mixed paper and our cardboard. We actually put some of these here for you so you can see the quality that we're able to produce here at this facility. Sure. Well, it's interesting because we begin to see the picture. Of where things go, especially when you talk about things like grade A aluminum here, things like, I'm guessing that's what this is. That might be tin, actually. Is that tin? We have some tin. We have some HDP here for your natural, your pigmented PET. Along with some of our paper and cardboard belts, you know, I'll tell you some of the best thing about these new facilities is the quality that we're able to produce for our clients, right? You know, as time goes by, it becomes more strict to meet their quality demands and with the investments that we do here, we're able to easily move it into the commodities market. I mean, seriously, that's where the technology has really gotten you guys, is you can run it down where it's pretty much exactly what it should be, right? Yes, exactly. You know, here at this facility we do have 11 optical sorters, magnets, eddy currents, ballistic separators. What's an eddy current? You got, hold on, I don't remember physics enough. You know what an eddy current is? I mean, Hank's an academic. What's an eddy current? An eddy current? An eddy current. What's an eddy current? I, I, I... This is why we have experts. I know a dude named eddy current that I went to school with. Wait, didn't he sing classic rock? I thought he was a classic rock singer. This guy. Not a... Adrian. Adrian, Adrian Forrest, make the point that you were going to make just before because this stuff going away all looks cleaner. I'm guessing it all goes to different places, but this is where we begin to see what I think at least is the end of the game. Yeah, well, so you can see all these cool bales. There's some items I have here. most people don't realize that a plastic water bottle can become our uniform shirt so even though this is a small one right it's my size but uh in this size shirt which is a lady's small it's about 27 plastic water bottles plastic water bottles any polar fleece quarter zip that you got on water bottles polar fleece so we actually take all the plastic bottles that we're recycling and we make our uniforms out of them so all of the uniforms that you see all of us wearing It was made out of bottles that we are collecting. And as part of America Recycles Day that's coming up here, WM is launching iRecycle, which is a national recycling education initiative to help promote recycling rights. And anyone that goes on the WM.com website will be able to sign up. I'll show the logo. You said WM.com. Backslash iRecycle, which launches November 6th. And they take the pledge, they can enter to win tickets for the Phoenix Open. The Phoenix Open? Phoenix Open, the largest zero-waste sporting event. So definitely check that out. But, you know, we really want to promote recycling, right? And you can see here how we're doing that. I didn't know the Phoenix Open was the largest zero-waste sporting event. Jim, square me on this, too. At the end of the day, as a businessman, as a business which waste management is, that tin goes back, the aluminum goes back, that's... Bare weight of stuff. You all get paid for that, don't you? We do. That's money in there. You should. You collected it. You collated it. There is. And then it fluctuates with the markets, right? The steel markets. Whatever a pound of tin goes for today or whatever it was yesterday. Correct. How does the game go with the things like the plastic and the paper? Yeah, same with the plastics, I mean, the PET, as Adrian said, can be turned into clothes, different things, the HDPE, either new bottles again, it can be made into carpets and decking and so forth. I don't want to put you on the spot for the boardroom or whatever, but 10 years from now, does waste management branch out a little bit and actually begin to cover some of these bases instead of taking it to somebody, maybe you take it to a different waste management facility? That brings it back, I don't know, where are we headed with this? Oh, I think so. I think as recycling continues to evolve and we as a company continue to evolve, I think those are things that we'll look at, absolutely. Being an end user of the material to make different commodities. Well, it's exciting a little bit, too. I mean, you get to be one of the good guys. Kids are always coming back from school talking about recycling. At home in the kitchen, you've got garbage side, recycling side. You're the guy. Yep. Exactly. So looking forward to what's going to transpire over the next couple of years. All right. Good stuff. Rafael, last word before we go to a quick break about what you all do here. Simple rules. Boom. Lay it out here. Yeah, so simple rules. Really what we're looking for is good, clean, dry, recyclable materials. We're not looking for any food to be in the stream. We don't accept bagged material. This is for safety reasons for our green collar employees and obviously... A big dangerous part for us is batteries. We do not want them in the recycling. And I'm going to tell you, jumping in on the batteries, and I'm just speaking for myself personally, I didn't know batteries were recyclable. I always think anything I put in recycle, I'm doing good for the environment. To hear how bad that is and how much of a problem it is for you guys that are actually getting the recyclables to where they need to go, that just educates me because I want to do the right thing. But now we know you've got to take it to your local counties. Recycling for e-waste, so it's good to know that. Yeah, no, absolutely, very important to know. You know, we do fight quite a bit of fires here during the year, so keeping those batteries out of the stream is going to be very important for us. Rafael, thank you for that again. Rafael Hernandez, guys, and I want to remind you, I have not heard tell. I'm in the news business of any fires up here in this particular facility. If there were one that got put out for the fire department guy here, you can compare that to a recycling facility in Camden that's had a number, something like 13 or 14 fires over the course of the last 14 years. So they're clearly doing something right up here at this particular waste management. What's the end game? Where does it all go? And what are the final remarks? I got Drew Anderson up here with me as well as the whole waste management team guys. This is the state of modern recycling, and it's happening right here in Tacony. We'll be right back with more Uncut. Well, if you ever wanted to know where your recycling goes, here's one example. Right here in Philadelphia, we're at WM's recycling facility. When I was here last time, all of a sudden this just moved and I went, oh, you guys just made some money. Because you guys mentioned earlier, this stuff is commodities. You get to sell this once it gets recycled and it goes to the next step to become, like we talked about, incredible, Hank, that it becomes clothing and things like that. And by the way, I just want to give some depth for how big this facility is. I mean, I can't even show you on the camera how big this sucker is. It's got to be, though, right? Because they drive back loaders around in some of these places. It has to be, which is why everybody's got safety vests and green hats on, because you've got to see everybody. There's just too many moving parts and too much big stuff, too much weight moving around. But, guys, listen, the non-recyclables, and the list is getting smaller. Waste management is working on it year by year. But Adrian... Clearly has not given up her loss at league last Friday night. She's bitter about it. And she's brought her bowling ball here, not just to wolf smack it. You can't recycle bowling balls. No, unfortunately, we get hundreds of these every year. I don't know, folks. Really? Let's donate them if we can. Otherwise, they stay out of the recycling bin, please. That's a curb. Do you have any idea how they do dispose of them, like at non-recycling, they just like crush them? It mostly goes to the landfill, unfortunately. Okay, landfill full of bowling balls. Yeah! Alright, well Raphael, what's interesting is you've got a ginger ale can, which is like top line recyclable, yes or no? Pizza box, not so much. So obviously aluminum, very recyclable. Now pizza box for us, the important piece is that it's a clean pizza box. Oh, that's clean. No grease, no cheese, no sauce on it. You know, at this point it would be a recyclable item that we could do. However, you know, one of the things that I tell a lot of people is if you have some of those ingredients on the box, just rip it apart, recycle the top or recycle the bottom. Whichever they could do to help, you know, with the recycling. What about if I have a jar of pasta sauce? Do I rinse it out? Can I put it in, un-rinsed? What's your advice? Yeah, so if you could rinse it out, that would be fantastic. Got it. And what do you got over there? It is the holiday season. Now it's November. He's an unfortunate. Unfortunately, we do receive quite a bit of this right after the holiday season, decorations and so forth. They are not recyclable. I understand they're made out of plastic, but it's not something that we can actually recycle. It actually, it causes damage to our system. I was going to say, I could see those getting wrapped up around your sprockets and your wheels and things like that. Correct. Is that the same with food and pizza boxes, Raphael? It's just going to gum up the works on the machines? Yeah, I mean, you know, you also have to think about Our employees that go in, they're going to have to clean these things out, right? And it's a safety thing as well, depending on what you're throwing out on the recycling. All right, and guys, again, you've been getting this. Audience, you've been getting this hook, line, and sinker for like 30 years to the point where recycling is bouncing off of your skull and you might not even be listening anymore. Adrian. We have to double down on this, because what we're doing, we're recycling. George Carlin used to have a bit, save the world, save the world. No, everybody's saying, save my butt. It's ourselves that we're saving. Yeah, just remember, America Recycles Day is celebrated on November 15th at WM. We recycle it, or we celebrate it every, we recycle it every day.