A lot of interesting items end up in the loads of recyclable materials collected at the curb around Hamilton, according to Dennis Guy, project manager with the City. A recent find was a copy of the Hamilton Spectator from 1967, fully intact but a bit musty.
It’s actually the quality of the paper and not what’s printed on it that matters when the loads of recyclables are dumped at Hamilton’s recycling plant and sorted. The sorting begins when the trucks arrive carrying the paper and containers that residents sort into their Blue Boxes. The paper is dumped into one area and is then shifted to a sorting area.
Guy admits that “it’s all paper” but not all paper coming out of blue boxes is equal. It is sorted according to quality. At the top of the recycling heap is paper with the longest fibres, like materials printed on virgin paper stock. Newsprint has shorter fibres because it has some recycled paper content. Cardboard is in another category and is sorted out separately.
Once the paper is sorted it is compacted into huge square blocks called ‘bales’ that are held together by heavy gauge wire. Forklifts transfer the bales onto transport trucks. Depending on the end use, companies purchase specific kinds of paper to suit their recycling needs.
To find out more about recycling and other waste management programs, check out the website at
www.hamilton.ca/waste.
