Dump truck field trip

Today, a few of us went to the San Francisco recycling and waste centers for my last work excursion. It was actually a very fascinating tour of the sorting facilities and the transfer station, apparently one of the most sophisticated and advanced in the world!

It also gave me a chance to wear a fluorescent yellow vest over my clothes and a hardhat for the day!

Our first stop was the recycling center, where enormous machines sort through the 800 tons of recycling that gets processed every day. That's 400 trucks of recycling, bringing in 1.6 million pounds!

The waste goes on huge conveyors that, through different techniques (weight sorting, magnets, electrically charged spinners, optical sorters, humans), organizes recyclables into paper goods, brown glass, green glass, clear glass, aluminum, ferrous metals, plastics and compacts them into bales. The bales are then shipped to different markets around the world to be recycled into new products.

I was awestruck at how automated, organized and efficient this facility was and by the sheer volume of recyclables that come through the center.

We then went to the transfer station, where trash and organics are organized to be shipped for processing. Since there's no landfill in San Francisco, all the trash gets consolidated and trucked to a landfill approximately 60 miles away. The organic matter goes up north and becomes compost for area farmers and vineyards. This part of the tour was not so kind on the olfactory senses, if you know what I mean.

We also learned about the artist in residence program, saw works by the current artists and walked through an impressive sculpture garden of past works.

All in all, it was an informative field trip and a nice way to spend my second-to-last day at work!