Everyone has heard the rumour that, despite the blue bags and Government?s efforts to implement the plan ten years ago, Bermuda does not really recycle.

Many believe that whatever goes into the blue bags goes straight to the Airport dump ? or to the Tynes Bay incinerator.

But it is time for that myth to be dispelled: Bermuda recycle.

Just not very much. Even that will hopefully change, however, with the building of a brand-new recycling plant, possibly at the Government quarry in Bailey?s Bay.

In the meantime, however, Bermuda will have to contend with the limits of the old facility at Devon Springs ? where visited recently to find out just what happens after Bermudians put those blue bags out by the roadside in the mornings.

What does go on is more than most people suspect. It is difficult to tell just who is recycling and how much waste is being recycled, said plant manager Carlos Burch, as the amounts fluctuate with the seasons: for example, waste management officials notice a definite decrease in the amounts of waste in the off-season.

Cruise ships and hotels both bring their recycling to the Devon Springs plant, he said, and the cruise ships especially have cleaned up their act greatly in the last few years. Private contractors, not Works & Engineering, pick up the recyclable waste from the cruise ships and hotels and bring them to the plant.

It is also private contractors who pick up the blue bags from Bermudian households, while the Corporations of Hamilton and St. George?s take care of blue bags in the cities.

The bags are all brought to the Devon Springs plant, where they are placed on a ptarmigan (a sorting belt). Once there, workers ( ?sorters?) open them and sort through the contents, discarding everything that is not suitable for recycling: plastic, bits of food waste, aerosol cans, paper and so on.

These rejects are the biggest problem faced by workers at the actual plant, said Mr. Burch. ?They have problems associated with them, especially those with food,? he explained. ?They smell, they draw rodents. It gets bad in the summer.

?From time to time we have to remind people to make sure cans and so on are clean before they go in the blue bags,? he said. ?It?s a problem.?

Some of that waste is sent on to other waste management facilities in Bermuda ? for instance, paint and batteries are sent to be disposed of along with other hazardous waste.

What remains on the ptarmigan after the sorters have done their job is aluminium, tin and glass. These proceed along the ptarmigan until they encounter the magnetic belt, which immediately separates the tin from the aluminium and glass. Aluminium and glass are then separated by hand.

The glass is crushed into two different sizes: larger shards which are used in the landfill at the Airport, and finer pieces which are used in, for example, the concrete Keep Bermuda Beautiful trash bins. ?Twenty percent of those are crushed glass,? said Mr. Trott.

The aluminium and the tin, on the other hand, are both sent from the ptarmigan over to the baler, where they are compressed into bales of metal. The aluminium bales (mostly soda cans) weigh around 500-600 pounds, and have about 18,500 cans per bale. It is impossible to estimate how many cans go into the tin bales, as tin cans tend to come in all shapes and sizes, however plant manager Carlos Burch estimated tin bales weigh closer to 1,000 pounds.

The bales have to be shipped off the Island for the final stage of the recycling process, to plants in New Jersey. They are sent in separate containers (the metals are not allowed to mingle), and the containers are not sent until they are full ? i.e. 17 bales per containers. ?It used to be more, but the metal would expand during the crossing,? said Mr. Burch. ?They couldn?t be unloaded once they reached New Jersey.?

Bermuda sells the metals to the States, he explained. ?We get paid market values,? explained waste management officer Clarkston Trott. ?As you can imagine, recycling is expensive in Bermuda with the shipping costs. We make a loss on tin. We may make a small gain on aluminium, depending on the market.? Expense is a major limiting factor in Bermuda?s efforts to recycle. For instance, Bermuda no longer recycles paper. Ten years ago newspaper was shredded to provide animal bedding, however the initiative proved to be more expensive than it was worth. ?We don?t do paper right now,? explained Mr. Trott. ?But we?re hoping to get back into it with the new plant.?

However, despite the fact that the plant loses more money than it makes, Mr. Trott explained it was only one-fifth of the waste management pie in Bermuda, and said the other parts help balance the expense.

?A definite goal is to help increase participation on the part of everybody,? said Mr. Trott. ?It?s a delicate balance between the environment and cost. If we could recycle 100 percent that would be ideal ? but we?re always striving to meet both environment and cost factors.?

With high hopes for the new plant, Mr. Trott and Mr. Burch are looking ahead. The plant is still in the works at the upper levels, said Mr. Trott, however the Government quarry at Bailey?s Bay has been earmarked as the site.

?We would?ve hoped to begin yesterday,? he laughed when asked when the plant would be up and running. ?We don?t know.

?We?d like to get some of the heavier metals, like cars and so one, off to some sort of recycling system,? he added. Different methods of recycling electronic waste, such as computers, are also being explored. ?We?re hoping that will be flying pretty soon.?

Currently oil and some paints and other materials are sent abroad, however Mr. Trott hopes to get 100 percent of those materials off the Island in the future. ?That?s the real nasty stuff.?

For now, however, if businesses, households, cruise ships and hotels continue to follow Ministerial programmes and do all they can, that will go a long way, they said. ?Just remember one thing,? finished Mr. Burch. ?Reduce, reuse, recycle.?