When we got to the Transfer Station, we all grabbed our trashbags from the vans and split off into two groups. One group would start off with Alan, and the other would go with Sarah McIntyre. I was in Alan's group with Winnie, Caroline, Ryan, and Jackson. We started off in the building that sits in the middle of the Transfer Station, we went inside and learned that the Transfer Station has its own free shop! We looked around the free shop before going outside to look at the different bins that the waste is separated into. First, we went to the paper waste bin, I had a few items to pick out and toss in there. Next, we went to the glass bin, I didn't have any items for this one, but Caroline, Winnie, and Jackson did. The last bin that we visited with Alan was for aluminum. At this point, Karl Methven had joined us, and when we all got over to the bin we saw a large number of beer cans. Jackson threw a couple of his aluminum items in the bucket before Karl joked, "This bin is only for Budlight cans!" Jackson believed him for a minute and reached to grab his items back out of the bin when Karl informed us that he was, in fact, messing with us.

Next, It was my group's turn with Sarah. We walked around and went to a different section of the Transfer Station with e-waste and construction waste. After this, we went to throw away the rest of what we had in our trash bags. This should have consisted of only plastics because plastic is the one material that the Transfer Station doesn't process. After we disposed of our trash bags, we went inside the office next to the trash compactor and spoke to the attendant on duty at the time. He spoke to us about what happens to all of the waste after Andover residents drop it off at the Transfer Station. After this, it was time to return to campus. We were all a bit cold, but excited to have learned about what happens at the Andover Transfer Station!

1. Where does all your trash go? What happens to it next?

If the waste is able to be recycled, it is not put into the waste stream that goes to an incinerator. These recyclables are brought to either a recycling center or is sold to companies that look to buy these kinds of materials.

All unrecoverable trash that goes through the Andover Transfer Station is brought to the Wheelabrator Incinerator in Concord, New Hampshire. This was very interesting for me to learn because I drive past this incinerator on my daily commute to Proctor. I wanted to learn more about this Incinerator because I have grown up being able to see it from my house, so I found some facts on the Wheelabrator Concord website. "Wheelabrator Concord provides dependable, environmentally safe disposal of up to 575 tons per day of post-recycled waste from homes and businesses in more than two dozen communities as a local fuel to generate as much as 14 MW of clean, renewable electricity for sale to the local utility. The Wheelabrator Concord waste-to-energy facility creates a local-energy ecosystem providing enough power to supply the electrical needs of 14,460 New Hampshire homes as well as its own operations." From here, the leftover ashes from the incineration process go to a landfill that specializes in incinerator waste. Incinerators are beneficial because they reduce the volume of our trash by 90% and the mass of our trash by 70%!

2. Find out what materials are recovered and why?

The only recyclable material that the Andover Transfer station does not recover is plastic. Processing plastics is more expensive and labor-intensive than other materials. In the past, Andover did recycle plastic but in the past years, it has become more difficult. Here is a list of "Acceptable Recyclables" from the Andover Transfer Station's website:

Corrugated Cardboard Boxes (Broken Down):

• Shoe Boxes

Mixed Paper

• Newspapers

• Junk Mail

• Office Paper & Manila Folders

• Envelopes including window envelopes

• Catalogs

• Paperback & Telephone Books

• Brown Bags

• Magazines & Inserts

• Egg Cartons

• Cereal Boxes

• Tissue boxes with plastic film removed

• Aluminum Foil boxes with metal strip removed

• Pasta boxes with plastic window removed

Plastic Containers # 1-7 Rinsed, No caps- TOWN NO LONGER DOING PLASTIC NO VALUE TO RECYCLE

• Juice/Drink bottles

• Milk Jugs

• Detergent Jugs

• Shampoo bottles

• Food Containers - No Black accepted

Metal

• Foil

• Steel & Tin Cans

• Empty Aerosol Cans

• Metal/Aluminum Pie Plates

• Trays

• Pet food cans

Aluminum Cans

• Beverage cans only

Glass

Jars & Bottles (No caps)

Wine bottles (No cork)

Beer bottles (No carton, No caps)

Any other alcohol bottles (No caps)

Soda bottles (No caps)

Water bottles (No caps)

3. Be sure to think outside your"bag" - what about food waste? Yard waste? E-Waste? Other stuff?

The Transfer Station does take E-Waste, construction waste, and yard waste. They do charge extra for this waste because it requires additional labor and expense to deal with properly. When visiting the Transfer Station we looked inside the bins where people can dispose of their E-Waste and Yard waste, as I expected, there was significantly less waste in these bins than in the more common waste categories of bins like paper and aluminum. Food waste is treated as garbage and goes in the waste stream along with plastics and other materials that are thrown in the trash compactor. The transfer station does not compost due to how time and labor-demanding the process is.

4. What are the social, economic and environmental advantages and disadvantages of the Andover Transfer Station?

The Andover Transfer Station is very accessible for the town's residents. Such easy access to recycling is all three social, economic, and environmental advantages. It is very easy and free of cost to recycle common household materials, giving Andover residents more incentive to recycle instead of open dumping or just throwing recyclables in the trash. One major economic disadvantage that Alan mentioned in class is how the Transfer Station undercharges for the car stickers ($10 flat fee). Many people utilize the Transfer Station frequently, and the town could be profiting significantly more if there was a different payment system in place for the disposal of trash. Another disadvantage of the Transfer Station is the lack of composting and plastic recycling. While they are making honorable efforts to reduce overall waste, food scraps and plastics account for a majority of what people are disposing of on a daily basis.

5. How and why is the town waste management service/system different from Proctor's?

Here at Proctor, we can recycle plastics while the Andover Transfer Station does not have the facilities to do so. It is too expensive and labor-intensive for the Transfer Station to do on its own. At Proctor, we outsource the labor to a company that comes and takes our trash and recycling. The major reason behind this difference is money. Proctor doesn't profit from our waste disposal, we are simply just looking to get rid of our trash. The Transfer Station is trying to profit, so they don't want to spend money on things that Proctor does.