By Jim Drake. May 9, 2019. With a vision of keeping tons of material out of the landfill, Emerald Systems is working with customers in the Columbia Gorge to divert a multi-faceted waste stream into a viable recycling system — one that creates jobs, profitability and a path to environmental sustainability.

“It really entails us all working together and coming together as a community, because we’re kind of on an island out here,” says Julie Tucker, Emerald Systems’ founder and sustainability consultant.

Tucker says she has been enamored with the recycling process since 1987. During her first job at a Portland container recovery facility, she saw the sheer enormity of material being diverted from the landfill. Now, after ten years of helping businesses like Azure Farms become self-sufficient in making their farms and warehouses zero-waste entities, she has landed Emerald Systems at the Port of Cascade Locks, with a 3,000 sq. ft. facility to collect, store and sort raw material for the recycling market.

“We pick up cardboard, glass, paper, plastic, foam, metals, rubber and other hard to recycle items. And then we work hard to find outlets for these materials. For example, one of our customers, I can’t say the name, but it’s a data center in The Dalles, provides us with particle board spools.”

According to Tucker, these spools, which once held wire for computer servers, represent 60 tons that stayed out of the landfill in 2018.

“The first thing we like to do is educate our customers on reducing what they are using, or help them figure out how to reuse it. I have customers that use these spools for art projects, and we can have them chipped for boiler fuel, which is an option for wood that can’t be reused,” she explains.

Emerald Systems started in 2017 in a warehouse in Tygh Valley, Oregon (30 miles south of The Dalles). Tucker says she had customers almost immediately, as the community welcomed the availability of a rural recycling depot.

Although that facility closed due to expenses, Emerald Systems maintains a pilot project depot in Dufur, where anyone can bring materials during operating hours. An operator is on hand during those hours to make sure the materials are properly cleaned and source separated.

“Our goal is to set up a depot in Maupin, Morrow, Grass Valley, Lyle, Klickitat…all these rural areas that don’t have a lot of access to these kinds of facilities. Each place could create a part-time job, and when it’s done right, these depots could actually create a profit for the community,” Tucker explains.

And one of the key components of making recycling profitable, she says, is producing a waste stream that is made up of clean, uncontaminated, source-separated material. In fact, due to the company’s guidelines on what they can and can’t collect, Emerald Systems guarantees that 95% of the collected material will not go to a landfill.

“The reason the recycling industry is shutting down is because of the contaminated co-mingle issue. China doesn’t want contaminated co-mingle. There’s still outlets for source separated material,” Tucker says.

“Big garbage companies don’t make money on recycling, and that’s part of what the hype is. They still want to be able to collect the money for co-mingle recycling, so they’re charging all these extra fees and they are going to limit your recycling because they can’t keep it clean. And that’s a shame because it’s not the garbage company’s fault.”

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”But there is a market for recycling. There’s just not a market for dirty co-mingle. And I think that’s very difficult for people to understand.”[/perfectpullquote]

In 2018, Emerald Systems collected more than 1,500 tons of fiber, metal, glass, plastic, and wood (along with 80,000 cubic feet of polystyrene type foams) from approximately 45 customers. And even though the company hasn’t been advertising, local agencies, namely the Tri-County Hazardous Waste & Recycling Program, are paying attention.

“We’re excited because we just received a $23,000 grant from Tri-County,” Tucker says.

“This grant will allow my company to get a lot more organized. When I had my first customer, I had to borrow $400 from my mom to rent a U-Haul. We’ve been just scraping by, piece by piece, week by week, and we finally got to the point where we could say this is a viable business.”

Tucker’s customer base grew dramatically last year, partly due to the closing of a local recycling facility in The Dalles. Also affecting her business are the market conditions for recycling materials, which she says are currently on a downswing (as far as material value). Portland companies that used to pick up materials in the Gorge are now calling her to do it, because it’s too expensive for them to drive out to the Gorge.

“The way that we run our business is that we broker people’s materials. Due to the market value of the materials, we sometimes have to factor in the cost of transportation for some of our customers. Other customers that pack, sort and clean the material properly can actually make money by the time we’re done,” Tucker says.

In a typical week, Emerald Systems employees pick up materials from customers in the company’s 26-foot Penske truck, and in many instances, they can take the material directly to a buyer, usually in the Portland area. And although Emerald Systems can accept materials that are normally picked up by curbside recycling programs, they cannot infringe on the franchise right of a hauler.

“For example, I can’t pick up household materials from residences in Hood River, or anywhere where there’s a franchise agreement. We have a recycle depot in Dufur because there’s no franchise agreement there,” she explains.

Large shipping containers (also known as intermodal containers) are staged outside of Emerald’s warehouse. Inside, an industrial horizontal baler with a ramp and scale can produce cardboard bales weighing a ton. And in 2018 alone, Emerald Systems processed over 1,100 tons of cardboard.

“We have to call in a flatbed for 50 bales, and we can’t store that inside our warehouse. In the Gorge, we pick up grocery store sized bales from Insitu, an aerospace company, which are between 700 and 800 pounds.”

Tucker says that the variety of businesses in the Gorge will keep Emerald Systems busy in coming up with a strategy for diverting the waste stream. The presence of breweries and wineries, for example, could eventually turn into a whole other pickup route.

“Breweries have a lot of the same waste streams, even down to the detail of grain bags, which are a polyethylene that can be lined with film plastic,” Tucker says.

“A majority of those are being put in the landfill. But if we can schedule a route one day where we can be picking up from the breweries, and a day when we pick up from the wineries, it’s another example of working with the community and getting this to work together.”

Other companies have approached Tucker about how to deal with their waste streams and, looking toward the future, she hopes to get certified for proprietary e-cycle capabilities.

“A sailboard company just contacted us and we’re working on finding an outlet for their materials. Some aerospace companies need to dispose of circuit boards that need to be ground up – we would need to be bonded and install special security measures to do that.”

Tucker says that Emerald Systems is ready to roll out an updated website that allows customers to schedule pick ups, and she has hired a business consulting firm to help with marketing. The next six weeks will be a critical development time for the company.

“It’s been a rough road keeping this going, but I believe this will work. I know how to work with customers and how to train people to sort their materials correctly, and I feel like it’s all coming together now, especially with this grant,” Tucker says.

All of this means that Emerald Systems will be prepared when the recycle market trend reverses into an upswing.

“I believe the market value and the co-mingle issue for recyclables is going to change drastically because people are going to start building domestic outlets for it. And then you’ll have an upswing. In the future, you’ll be able to make money from these different materials because they’ll be commodities,” Tucker says.

Tucker, who credits the support of her Hood River family for a successful business start, says that her vision of streamlining the Gorge’s recycle process into a cohesive system is really just part of her job. She mentions that she recently helped with the community cleanup day in nearby White Salmon, Wash., where the community collected over 7,000 pounds of electronic e-cycle waste.

“It’s really to help protect this part of the earth. It’s a hard job, but I feel like this is what I should do.”

The Emerald Systems recycling facility is located at 50 Northeast Herman Lane, Casade Locks, OR 97014. For more information about dropping off recyclables, email info@emeraldsystems.org

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WHAT DID EMERALD SYSTEMS RECYCLE IN 2018?

Fiber: 1,235.9 tons

Cardboard: 1,191 tons

Mixed paper: 19.6 tons

Office Paper: 17.8 tons

Newspaper: 2 tons

Cartons: 4 tons

Books: 1.5 tons

Glass: 62.5 tons

Metals: 96.4 tons

Stainless steel 304: 54,000 lbs

Aluminum old sheet: 3600 lbs

Baled tin: 14 tons

UBC (Beverage Cans): 6480 lbs

Copper Wire: 1200 lbs

Communications Wire: 1200 lbs

Insulated Copper Wire: 1200 lbs

Computer Wire: 1200 lbs

E-cycle (electronics): 48 tons

Plastics: 135 tons

Plastic Barrels: 18,320 lbs

Plastic Buckets: 13, 840 lbs

Clear Film (shrink wrap): 57,000 lbs

Colored Film (shrink wrap): 28,500 lbs

Sorted Misc. Plastics 1-7: 43,000 lbs

#1 Bottles: 30,800 lbs

#1 Mixed: 15,300 lbs

Clear #2: 22,000 lbs

Colored #2: 41,600 lbs

Total amount recycled: 1,529.8 tons