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Educating Workers Is Key To Island's Unique Composting System

Mackinac Island Service Company's Tom Horn (left), atop one of the company's "two-footer" drays, catches a bale of cardboard tossed by fellow employee Dale Roe Wednesday, June 4. Cardboard and recyclable materials are picked up every Wednesday afternoon at 4 p.m. Every spring, Bruce Zimmerman instructs people on the basics of sorting and recycling waste. His classroom is the entire island of Mackinac.

Mr. Zimmerman, director of Mackinac Island Department of Public Works (DPW), and his staff have been educating residents and business owners on the department's system of separating compost, recyclable items, and landfill waste since 1994, ever since the Island's landfill closed. Any trash that can't be recycled must be shipped to a mainland landfill.

"It's a really good green program," said Mr. Zimmerman. "Other programs have been modeled after us."

Although residents understand how the system works, the businesses and seasonal workers new to the Island need close monitoring. "The residents are doing very well with the program," said Mr. Zimmerman. "As for the businesses, they struggle every year for a few reasons, but mostly because of new staff."

There are more new workers on the Island this summer than usual, because some longtime foreign visa workers were unable to return.

Because of that, educating the public on the importance of sorting trash has been even more important this year, said Mr. Zimmerman. So has being patient with those still learning the system.

At Hotel Iroquois on the Beach, for example, turnover of staff has been between 80% to 90% this year, said Loren Horn, the hotel's maintenance supervisor for the past 18 years. Returning international workers usually make up half of the hotel's 100-person staff each year.

Don't "Trash" a System

That Works

Mackinac Island's waste system is more refined than just tossing items into a bag and setting it outside to be picked up.

The DPW sells two kinds of bags for waste: landfill and compost. It also sells a $6 sticker to businesses for compacted material.

The blue landfill bags, sold for $3 each, are to include noncompost material, such as aerosol cans, potato chip bags, cat litter, and plastic. The clear compost bags, that cost $1.50 each, should include biodegradable material such as paper, food scraps, books, and coffee grounds and filters, for example.

The DPW also accepts recyclable items such as magazines, catalogs, and is now recycling newspapers for profit, as well.

Because shipping costs are incurred for all goods - including trash - leaving the Island, cost saving management is vital, said Mr. Zimmerman, especially with high fuel prices these days. Shipping a 30-yard container of trash costs the DPW $1,200. During the peak months of June, July, and August, the DPW ships two or three 30-yard containers a day.

The sorted waste from the community is hauled by dray to the city's Solid Wast Handling Facility in the center of the Island, and is distributed from there. The landfill items in blue bags are compacted and shipped to Dafter, in the Eastern Upper Peninsula.

Materials in compost bags get a final screening from facility staff, then are shredded, watered down, and mixed with horse manure, hay, and straw. The mixture is piled into composting bays, where it decomposes.

After 45 to 60 days, the finished compost is tested and then sold as topsoil.

The more items that can be composted or recycled, the more

money is saved, and the "greener" the Island is, - literally, said Mapleview Paul Wandrie, supervisor of the Island's Solid Waste Handling Facility.

Mr. Wandrie has kept a close eye on the recycling and compost material figures since 1994.

The facility, he said, has sold 8,700 cubic yards of compost within the community since 1995, selling all of the compost it has made each year since 1996.

Compost is available for $10 a cubic yard. During the summer, soil can be delivered by the Island Service Company. During the off-season, DPW hauls soil at no charge.

One thing that the DPW must continue to persuade the public is to avoid using the blue landfill bagsto throw away everything, and to take the time to separate compost and recyclable material.

"We don't usually sort through the blue bags, only when they break open while on the compacter here," Mr. Wandrie said. "From those bags, we've seen a lot of compost and recyclable items in there.

"When people do not sort, it taxes our time here at the facility," said Mr. Wandrie, who has a staff of four. "Most people don't realize what we accomplish out here."

In July 2007, for example, the staff pulled in 1,596 compost bags, sorting through each one to assure no non-compost material sneaks through. For blue bags during that same month, 12,546 came through the facility. The facility also took in an additional 2,515 bags of landfill items compacted by Island companies that own their own compacters. The companies that compact their trash must obtain DPW stickers for each bag, said Mr. Zimmerman.

"That's a lot of trash to sort, especially when one guy has a day off," said Mr. Wandrie, who received some relief this summer with the hiring of a seasonal worker.

Many businesses have established their own system for sorting trash. Iroquois Hotel, for example, posts signs by each garbage bin, listing what items are allowed in each bin, a system common in many businesses and homes.

"It's a lot of repetitiveness in instructions," said Mr. Horn. "We're constantly on" the workers, to make sure they sort the hotel's garbage correctly.

Grand Hotel, which compacts its trash, goes an extra step, assigning workers to sort the hotel's trash before it is placed on a dray to be transported to the handling facility, said Hotel Maintenance Supervisor Dan Hosford. The hotel's garbage is shipped to the facility separately, he said.

Enforcing city regulations of bagging and setting out garbage to be picked up by the Mackinac Island Service Company has been working well, as long as the DPW knows who to contact if a badly sorted bag is found, said Mr. Zimmerman.

Mr. Zimmerman said the city can fine a business for not complying with waste disposal regulations, however, he said notifying them when a violation occurs is more productive.

"Fining is our last resort," he said.

Jim Roe, supervisor of the Island's dray service company, has no complaints and has heard of no complaints from businesses and residents with trash pickup service. He has been impressed with businesses for keeping trash bags off the public sidewalks up until the dray comes by to pick it up, and, he said, most businesses are doing well with setting out cardboard just before the 4 p.m. pick-up time.

"Everything is running smoothly," he said. "Everyone is following the way it's supposed to be done."