NAME:WHUATORHE SOPHIA TEJIRI

STUDENT NO : 4256194

NIAGARA REGION RECYCLING FACILITY

Introduction
Niagara recycling facility is a sorting and a non profit making organization , the facility is about
40 years of age for the processing contractor basis of the Niagara region ,the profit goes back to
taxpayers .
In the 1980s Ontario was known for 2nd blue box, Niagara region processes sand blasting
abrasive called Niagara Ecoglass that is made from recycled glass from the blue box program
glass material separated are transported to another facility that removes the plastics and paper
contamination before being returned to the recycling centre where they are grinded, dried ,
screened and packaged . Niagara Region glass although is a huge market with a high demand for
its end product is used in the cement , ash fall , shingles , garden mulch , some paints and in
water filtration system . The plant is owned by Niagara region and there are over 82 employees,
non profit making organization and off shoot of INTEC. There is a strong health and safety
group that meet every month with in provincial guide line , lots of personal protective equipment
was available , policies and procedures was found on the walls of lunch room .
On the 31st of march 2015 we the student at the environmental management and assessment
program had a trip to the Niagara region recycling facilities that render services to
municipalities, rental ,hotel , motel , industrial , commercial and institutional it does not require
any additional tax payers with 97% of recovery rate and over 80,000 tonnes of plant was
recycled last year and up to 10% tonnes goes back to taxes
In Niagara region the recycling process start with individual to ensure that the material are well
sorted before it gets to the recycling process .The blue box comprises of glass , plastic and
aluminum , carton and Grey box comprises of paper , box board , card board and tied bundled
plastic bags . close to 85,000 tonnes of recyclable was processed in the year 2011 at the facility
TIPPING FLOOR is the first process at the recycling operations where the recycling trucks
arrives through the day loaded with grey and blue box material, there is a front end loader that
pushes the material unto the conveyors and are moved into two processes the more you look the
more material are placed wrongly. The fibre line for the grey box material or unto a container
line for blue box material, on the fibre line employees first remove the plastic bags when the
plastic bags are properly bundled in the grey box that makes it easier to separate from the paper

and cardboard. once the paper bags are ripped open the paper are separated in a screening
process , there are two paper screening process the 1 st separates card boards as paper moves over
the screen the larger piece moved along the top , the 2 nd screen separates box board and news
print and flows along the lower part through the screen , after the screen paper goes into the
paper sort room where final sorting is done manually , card board receive a final hand sorting to
ensure the top grade product when recycling card board remove all non recycling material , there
after card board are piled into the bailer or compacted and are bundled with a strong still wire .
Over on the container line where the initial sorting begins the employee 1 st remove plastic bags
that are incorrectly place in the blue box such as large plastic bottles as detergent and shampoo
bottles and other bottles such as polystyrenes tops and leads, this materials then runs through a
magnetic separator that separates steel container, glass, aluminum cans, juices and milk cartons .
The manual sorting removes aluminum cans and foils while juice and other cartons and others as
milk plastics pass through a perforator to be flattened is then moved to the optical sorter .The
optical sorter automatically identify and separate the different type of plastics from aluminum
can, juice and milk cartons using new infra-red light technology, the plastic goes through the
sensor compressor is used to identify and separate the plastics, The end result is grouped into
three categories of materials these include:

Water and pop bottles

Mixed plastics and aluminum cans
Poly coated milk and juice cartons

Sorters manually removes the poly coated cartons while electrical Eddy current removes the
aluminum cans , as for the other material are well sorted are readily transported for further
processes where they can be reused in new products and material
News papers are loaded and transported by truck to further processing facilities in Thorold
where it is manufactured in a new recyclable strength, most of the other blue box and grey box
material are bundled together and sold to processors who will use this recycling material to
create new product .
OBSERVATION AND ANALYSES
I observed that People have a wrong way in disposing waste items which can causes cross
contamination of waste both on the fibre line and control line, also items like sharps, paints,
hazardous material including pest should not be found in the sorting room where cardboard is a
major problem in land fill they take a lot of space, in as much as this situation of waste disposal
is a major concern in our contemporary day, incentive program can be implemented in order to
reduce the amount of waste been diverted to land fill by various incentive measures should be
put in place such as the community system , education throughout reach and publications ,
financial and employee morale , the public should go for products that has recyclable content
to save our land fill space .