Our new best buddy, Big Blue is just crushing it out at the Exchange

Having a glass crusher is a big deal here on our island, where trash and recyclables are costly to transport to the mainland. With Big Blue, used glass no longer needs transporting – it can be crushed and repurposed right here on the island.This past Sunday, Orcas Recycling Services Board President, Jim (“Duff”) Duffield, gave a tour of the facility and a first-hand look at Big Blue’s glass crushing capabilities along with the help and knowledge of ORS employees Gary Bauder and Connor Pamatian.

Most of us are familiar with the gigantic bins we dump trash and recycling into. According to Connor, the most garbage ORS has dealt with in one day is 67 tons, and it isn’t uncommon for them to have to transport five trailers of garbage to the mainland in a week – each trailer carrying 26 tons.

While it’s environmentally friendlier to separate recyclables from our garbage, it’s also financially wiser. But it has to be done correctly. “We pay more for garbage than for mixed recycling so that’s why it’s important that these loads stay uncontaminated if at all possible.” Duff explains that when recycling enters a facility on the mainland, it is dumped out and examined. If it is contaminated with garbage, it gets pushed off the floor as garbage for the landfill.

As you can imagine, glass increases the weight and cost of transporting and disposing of garbage and recycling tremendously, and now that Big Blue has been operating since November, there have already been significant benefits of keeping glass on the island. According to Connor, “the recycle trailer would go off island about once a week before we started crushing glass and separating cardboard; now it’s about every five weeks.”Duff adds, “Pete (Moe) told me that by weight, our mixed recycling has been reduced by 32% because we’re taking glass out.”

“There was one weekend, Friday to Sunday,” says Gary, “that I did 3 1/2 tons of glass in just that time.” Duff projects significant increases in the summertime due to tourism.

Onlookers on Sunday’s tour got the chance to see Big Blue in action, as Gary transported a load of glass, dumped it in the hopper, and fired up the machine. “The glass goes up into the pulverizer, which is a series of metal hammers that are centrifugal, going at an incredibly high rate of speed.” Gary explains that it all goes through a four-to-five-foot-long metal barrel with a screen that separates the glass from the non-glass material like labels, lids, and other various pieces. Anything bigger than 3/16 of an inch is re-fed again to go through a second time.

“The reduction is about eight to one, volume-wise. I am very surprised at the volume we’re going through; it’s exceeded my expectation. We’re definitely running it at least once a day if not twice.”The result is a pile of glass made of pieces smaller than a pea down to the size of sand grains. “It doesn’t look like much until you think that it would be eight times that in glass containers. We’re working with excavator companies to use it for fill, and we encourage creativity. We’ve got people who’ve come here for buckets of glass to experiment with doing some different firings,” Gary explains. Connor adds that there will be a septic guy coming to see if he can use the glass for specific applications. “We’ve really just scratched the surface with how this can be applied,” says Duff.

ORS will also have a baler in the near future in order to compress materials. “We’ve gone through the technical drawing stage, the engineering, and it’s been submitted to the county for permitting,” Duff says. The baler will be in a sheltered post-and-beam building. Once materials are compressed into bales, they will be set in storage units to stay dry until they can be shipped off the island. “Doing it that way, we may have to take cardboard off once every three months as opposed to once or twice a month, which saves a whole lot on transportation. That’s the big issue,” according to Duff.Watch for more information in the news and on the ORS website about the baler’s progress. “We’re projecting that by spring of next year, the baler will be operational. We first have to satisfy all the requirements of the county, which takes time.”

In the meantime, the best thing we can do as residents here on Orcas Island is separate our trash and recyclables, and separate them well. Gary fishes stuff out of the bins every single day, even though there’s good signage indicating what goes in each receptacle. He has found everything from diapers to a dead deer carcass. Remember, also, to remove screw-on lids and corks from bottles. If you have any questions while you are dumping your trash, there are volunteer docents walking around in orange vests who are there to help you

If you, too, would like to see the glass crusher in action, Duff will be conducting two tours each month through the summer. Email him at tpiduff@hotmail.com to see if there is room.

To take a little tour of the recycling area online with him, watch this: