02 · Recovery
Most operations have at least one stream going to landfill that somebody would buy. The reason is rarely that nobody noticed. It is that the volume was too small, the freight was too far, or the sorting took a person nobody had — and once those three are solved the material was never really waste.
What the work covers
Not a reading of your waste contract — an actual look at what leaves the building. The streams worth chasing usually show up within a day of looking, and so do the ones that are not worth anybody's time. We do that sort with your team and tell you which is which.
Can it go back into your own process, go out again on your own shipments, go back to the supplier who sent it, or go to another operation running the same packaging? Material that never needs reprocessing is always worth more than material that does. We work through those four questions before anyone talks about recycling it.
We place separated material with the mill, processor or manufacturer that consumes it, then check the grading and the payment against what we shipped rather than taking anyone's word for it.
Where there is no buyer within reach, we route material to energy or material recovery. That is still a better outcome than burying it, and we record it as what it is rather than calling it recycling.
Compacting, baling, combining loads, filling trucks that are already heading the right way. A material with a willing buyer and no affordable way to reach them is not a program. This is the part that decides whether most streams move at all. We solve that side before recommending any equipment you would have to buy.
Weights, destinations and recycling percentages with the workings attached — what was counted, what was left out, what was weighed and what was estimated. So the figure holds up under scrutiny. We produce the figures and the method behind them, and they are yours to publish.
How it is kept honest
A stream that does not pay is worth knowing about as quickly as one that does, and you should hear it from us rather than discover it on an invoice. Markets move, so a stream ruled out this year is worth a second look later — and one that works today can stop working without warning.
Questions
Sometimes, and when it is we say so. Labour and freight are what decide it, not the commodity. A stream that needs two people sorting to reach a buyer four states away is a disposal stream wearing a better name, and calling it anything else wastes your money and our credibility.
Not before it is established that the equipment pays for itself. Baling, densifying and compacting all solve real problems, and all of them have been sold into plants that did not have the volume to justify them. Volume and distance come first, capital second.
It is handled as waste, and the reason is recorded. That record matters more than it sounds: it is what makes the figure hold up under scrutiny, and it is what we revisit when a market or a processor changes.
Related
Scope is yours to setThis can be taken on at one site, for one stream, or across a full portfolio. Starting small carries no condition about the rest, and scope can move in either direction afterwards.
One stream is enough to establish whether there is anything in the rest of it.