NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Every other week, residents put out their blue bins on trash day with the idea that what they put inside will be recycled and revived, rather than added to the landfill. 

But where does the stuff in the blue bins actually go? Some say it goes to China. Others say it goes nowhere. 

But St. George News joined a couple of local home-schooled kids and found out where it really goes: Las Vegas.

After initially being brought to the Washington County Landfill as a central transfer station, the material dumped in the blue bins, which are referred to as “BluBins” by Washington County Solid Waste, makes a two-hour journey down Interstate 15 to Republic Services Southern Nevada Recycling Center in North Las Vegas.

There, the recyclable paper, plastic and aluminum of St. George and the surrounding areas join that of the Las Vegas area and Lake Havasu, Arizona, to be processed in a giant machine that takes up much of the 110,000-square-foot facility – the largest of its kind in the nation, according to Republic Services. 

Employing mostly conveyer belts, the 10-step system uses a combination of scanning technology, magnetic currents, and rotating metallic screens to separate the papers from the plastics, glass and metals and processes them into bales for transport to other facilities that ultimately reuse the materials.

The whole process from end to end takes 2 1/2 minutes.

Washington City resident Taylor Combe organized the trip with other local home-school parents on social media after she said she got tired of neighbors making comments when she brought out the BluCan to the curb. 

“We have a lot of people who are thinking it just goes to the landfill,” Combe said. 

It doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean everything that comes to the North Las Vegas facility doesn’t stay out of the landfill. 

Salinda Strandberg, the recycling coordinator at the facility, let the home-school kids and St. George News know right away that there is an issue with people putting the wrong items in the blue bins. She said 40% of what comes in are non-recyclables, including many residents using the BluCans as just another trash can. 

“People don’t know what can be recycled,” Strandberg said. “There’s wish-cycling. People wish it could be recycled. Other people use it as trash overflow. It just slows us down.”

According to Republic Services, that translates not only into a literal waste of resources but also into increased trash pick-up fees from having to clean out actual trash clogging up the big blue and yellow machine in the facility. 

The electronic eyes and magnetic drums usually filter out what doesn’t belong, but some non-recyclables can get into gears and bring the conveyer belts to a halt – especially food waste such as banana peels that still end up being dumped in the BluCans. 

Besides the obvious items like food and lint-trap waste that don’t belong in the recycle bins, other materials that are usually recyclable are also not meant to go in the BluCans. That comes down to the demand for certain materials.

Case in point: While supermarket and store bags seem like they can go in the blue containers, they’re one of the most difficult plastics to recycle and there aren’t enough buyers of raw materials who will take the bags to recycle. 

“We initially had plastic bags but then no buyer wanted it,” Strandberg said, though she added it’s possible residents may eventually get a notice that the plastic bags are clear for BluCans. “It does change. If we find a buyer, we have the ability to augment our machine.”

That can create a problem when people put their recyclables in a bag and throw that in the blue bin. The scanners of the machine aren’t able to see that the bag contains cans and bottles – it just sees a bag and sorts it into the piles heading to the dump. 

“You just made a longer trip to the landfill,” Strandberg said. 

The dozens of local kids touring of the recycling facility immediately had two of their senses immediately overwhelmed: smell and hearing. 

The noise of all the refuse being moved around wasn’t far off from that of several jackhammers. The smell resembled that of a large trash bin outside a fast-food restaurant.

Eight-year-old Sophie Thompson knew what she was first going to tell her friends about the visit to where the blue bin recyclables go. 

“I will tell them it is very loud and very big.,” Sophie said.

As for the smell? “It’s awful.”

All about the machine

The center is capable of processing 1,000 tons of material a day – the equivalent of 500 automobiles. On a typical day, 575,000 plastic bottles are processed by the center. But Strandberg said despite getting the combined recyclables of both Las Vegas and much of Southern Utah on a constant basis, the facility hasn’t come close to that milestone in one day. 

From 4:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. every weekday, the five layers of conveyor belts of the big blue machine are constantly running, only stopping for the occasional non-recyclables clogging the system. 

There’s a little green in that blue machine as well. About 15% of the machine’s power comes from 1,770 solar panels around the outside of the center. Some of the recyclables also don’t leave the facility to get new life. The main visitor lobby includes chandeliers made of plastic milk gallon bottles.

Near the back area, the distinctive blue Republic Services garbage trucks are continuously backing in and dumping recyclables onto an area near the start of the machine. Strandberg said 30 truck dumps arrive every hour. 

After an initial sort in the dumping area, including removing larger items that are still recyclable, the materials are added to the machine on the first conveyer belt and the process begins.

First, a screen designed to remove corrugated cardboard and larger paper filters that out. Then, as the rest of the material moves through the system, a collection of drums and scanners remove glass down to the smallest particles. A process of physics has glass gather on the drum based on rotation and position while all non-glass material is vacuumed out and moves on. 

The next step is another paper screen removing newsprint and non-cardboard paper. Right about this point, there are five optical standards utilizing 2D and 3D technology that within milliseconds identifies plastic containers and removes them. 

For this reason, Strandberg said despite the common thought that recyclables like plastic bottles should be crushed, they should be left in their original form as much as possible as the system looks specifically for the telltale shapes of water bottles, detergent containers and milk gallons. Strandberg also said it helps to keep the caps on as long as no liquid remains in the plastic containers. 

The next step involves magnets and electromagnetic charges that rip away metal containers like aluminum.

What remains at this point are mostly plastic containers. A final optical system sorts the plastic based on color, density and other criteria.

With all of the recyclables now separated, they are condensed mechanically into 1,400- to 2,000-pound bales. Each bale doesn’t stay on site for more than 24 hours before it is shipped off to raw material customers worldwide. That soup can in a blue bin in St. George picked up on a Tuesday within a week or two may be at a cannery in some other state or country ready to form the material of a new can.

Did you know?

While the machine, which doesn’t have any fancy name besides “the machine,” is a technological marvel, Strandberg said there are still steps residents may not know about that can ensure the recyclables end up being reused, rather than in a landfill. 

• Put all items in the BluCans individually, rather than in bags. Empty the bag and put that in the regular trash bin.
• Rule of thumb: If it’s smaller than a credit card, don’t put it in the blue bin.
• The winner for best material to recycle? Metals like aluminum and other metals. “Metal is indefinitely recycled,” Strandberg said.
• If it’s plastic and a person can punch a hole in it, keep it out. Bubble wrap is fun but belongs in the green bin.
• There’s no need to remove labels unless it’s a shrink wrap.
• Contrary to popular belief, at least part of the pizza box is ok to go in the blue bin. Just leave out the really greasy parts, which may mean just ripping the top off and putting that in the BluCan. “I want a pizza box if it doesn’t have food or drink on it,” Strandberg said. 
• If paper can’t get mushy when wet, it can’t go in the blue bin. That means things like McDonald’s soda cups and paper plates are a no-go. Items such as paper towels and tissue paper are exceptions. “That’s called end-of-life paper,” Strandberg said. “If you can wipe with it, it’s not good to us.”
• The machine’s system can have trouble sorting if liquid or food are still in containers. “If you can eat it or drink it, run out of it,” Strandberg said. 
• Books can be recycled … except for the cover if it’s a hard-bound cover. Remove the bound cover and recycle away.

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