Arriving at the Arlington MRF
July 16th- Quinn and I gear up for our second recycling plant tour and Quinn is not very excited at all! This is the first time his enthusiasm has waned. His lack of pep is due to the fact that he is leaving his good friend ,Logan, at our house. I really can not blame him as Logan is hanging out in our pool and has to leave in a few short hours to return to Austin, Texas. As we pull out of the driveway I give it to Quinn straight ” We have an appointment and no matter how hard it is the Arnetts always follow through with our promises and commitments.” Quinn sulks and looks at the floor of the car. I take the time and his undivided attention to elaborate on how this event will translate into the rest of his life. “Quinn, I am sorry you are mad at me but, there are going to be a lot of times in your life that you are going to have to make hard choices and follow through with commitments but, you will be able to be proud of yourself once the task is completed”. I glance in my rear view mirror and Quinn replies in a beat down voice “Mom, I’m not mad at you” and puts the headphones on to watch the movie Bolt. I smile and turn up the radio and think man, I could be floating in the pool too!
We arrive at the Arlington M.R.F. (Materials Recovery Facility) in no time at all. We pull up to a very large building that is worn and dirty. The parking lot is very busy with large trucks coming and going and we make our way to the scale house, as we have in our past efforts, to find we are to get back in the car and go to the other end of the building. Not a big deal, we are still on-time for our 10am appointment with the new Operations Manager, Brian. Brian meets us at the door of a very 1970′s ish office. I say 1970′s because all I see is a hue of orange. There are cubicles off to the left side and bathrooms off to the right. I guess I take such great notice of the decor because it is so different from all of our other adventures. Trash and recycling had appeared to be so happy before. Recycling was now becoming dingy and dismal. Brian informs us that the “other” group had not arrived yet and we were to take a seat and wait for them. The “other” group we come to find out is a group of pre-engineering students from Arlington. I take out my Flip camera to get a shot of Quinn and Brian informs me that WM, the owner of this plant, has a “no camera policy” inside the actually plant. I’m not surprised and he offers to take our picture before we start the “Secret Tour”.
Quinn & Mom at Arlington MRF
I ask “How often do things get updated around here?” Brian shares that they have just recently spent 6 million dollars for new recycling equipment”. Goodness, recycling is not a cheap business to get into. The “other” group arrives and they seem to be very nice 16 & 17-year-old students. We are divided into 2 groups and Brian takes our group of 6.
Before we enter the plant we all costume ourselves in safety glasses, hard hats and very fashion forward reflective vests. Brian starts the tour by giving us the safety lecture. “You are all to stay with me. This plant is very dangerous and there will be no horsing around or the tour will end for everyone, got it?” Now Brian is probably 5′ 10″ ish and a little stocky but not intimidating at all until he said “got it“. I assure you, we all got it. Now remember, Quinn is 8 years old and has been to several sites like this already so I figure this will be a piece of cake. We follow Brian onto the floor and pass large bails of aluminum and plastic that are at the end of their stay here at the plant and are ready to be shipped out. Then we see the huge pile of recycling that is being shoveled onto a big conveyor belt much like the one in McKinney but, bigger, Actually this facility dwarfs McKinney’s facility. This place is easily the size of a football field and noisy. The large recycling machines are working hard. Brian takes us up the stairs to where the process begins. There are about 6 guys and gals with big gloves on going through the material that is to be recycled. Brian explains that the sole purpose of this facility is to sort the material that comes in the doors and as long as there is someone to buy the stuff they sort they will be in business. Brian continues “If we do not make money we are not in business -bottom line” Ok, well, no saving the planet here! We continue past several other high-tech sorting machines that all of a sudden come to a halt. The line is down and Brian is not happy about this at all but, maintains his composure for his tour group. After we pass a group of workers sorting out the recycles Brian makes a point to stop and tell us “While these people are very important to the success of this business and they work very hard everyday; they are also a perfect reason to go to college, so you do not have to do their job.”. Hmmm, note to self, if Quinn starts to slack bring him back here for a wake up call. Geeze, I should be ashamed of myself or should I?
I wish I could have gotten some pictures of the equipment. We are standing about 20 feet up on elevated walkways, much like an elevated train in Chicago, and the walkways are about 2 and a half feet wide. When the machines are going there are particles of, who knows what, flying through the air and Quinn and I are happy to have on our safety goggles. Quinn grabs my hand which is odd, holding my hand became uncool in kindergarten. We continue holding hands for the rest of the tour which was about 20 minutes. Brian finds out that the line is down due to a long piece of wire being stuck in a vibrating machine. The line continues to be down for the rest of the tour and Brian tells us we missed seeing the coolest machine: A huge magnet that sorts metal. Brian finishes our tour by thanking us for being respectful and well-behaved and then throwing in a story that there once was a man who fell in the bailing machine and his organs squished out through a hole in his chest while he was bailed! Yes, I was just as caught off guard as you. Quinn and I looked at each other, took off our gear, said thank you and were out the door. Goodness gracious,that was an experience. Quinn and I debrief in the car on the way home. Quinn was not impressed. He did not like the noise, the dirt, the height of the equipment and is already making plans to design safer, more efficient equipment immediately.
As I reflect on our experience, I wonder how one recycling plant can be so different from another, then I realize I own a salon & spa and pride myself in thinking that ours is different from the rest. Why wouldn’t recycling plants be just as different? I truly believe that recycling will help save our planet and if it takes large corporations running them solely for profit to accomplish that, I guess I can handle it. That does not change the fact that I am sad that I have to leave my naive, pretty picture of companies recycling for our planet’s sake behind. Til next Friday, composting gone wild!
emptytrashcans
