42
1st QUARTER 2014
CFO 2
Learn more about the author
By Brian Giambagno
CFO, The Action Environmental Group
CFO
I
f your company has a sustainability pro-
gram, as a growing number of companies
do, you might be diligent about collect-
ing and flattening cardboard, and about
sorting recyclables and disposing of other
trash into separate containers. But then you
probably have no idea what happens to all
the waste paper, plastic, glass, metal, and
textiles that companies and residents of the
New York Metro area throw out. Every year,
New York City generates more than 14 mil-
lion tons of waste, about half of which can be
recycled. Offices, restaurants, and manufac-
turing facilities produce about 3.5 million
tons that private solid-waste haulers collect.
All recyclable materials go to a Material Re-
covery Facility (MRF) and are then sold to
domestic and overseas mills for processing.
Commercial customers pay haulers to
remove the municipal solid waste (MSW)
and transport it to its final destination. The
cost for transportation and disposal (T&D)
continues to grow along with the escalating
costs of city tolls. When fuel costs go up, they
also cause prices of T&D to increase. Recy-
cling material, on the other hand, is sold to
domestic or overseas markets, depending on
logistics; this allows well-run and well-locat-
ed solid waste haulers (proximity to ports
allows city haulers access to vibrant Asian
markets) to keep a lid on costs to customers.
Diverting MSW from landfills to a recycled
commodity provides an ROI to the haulers
while offering its customers the ability to
achieve their sustainability goals.
A number of years ago, the Action Envi-
ronmental Group recognized the challenge
of feeding too much waste to the landfills.
The company’s management team traveled to
California, Canada, England, and Germany
to visit MRFs to find what would work here.
Two years later we have a state-of-the-art
operating system, referred to as an optical
sorter, that does more than anticipated.
Action’s Hunts Point, Bronx, facility
operates as a traditional transfer station but
also houses the optical sorter. The mixed
OPTICAL SORTING IS HOW THIS RECYCLER KEEPS MORE
WASTE OUT OF LANDFILLS AND HELPS CUSTOMERS
MEET THEIR RECYCLING GOALS
Transformation
in Waste Handling
