On Saturday, February 15th, 2020, my AP Environmental Science class visited the Andover New Hampshire transfer station. Unfortunately, I was home sick with the flu during this field trip and was unable to experience first-hand what goes on behind the scenes. To make up for this, I spent a lot of time reading blogs from my peers to gather as much information as possible. Before reading and learning about transfer stations for this assignment, I did not know much at all about the subject.
The main purpose of a transfer station is to temporarily store waste. At a transfer station, waste is sorted before it is dispersed accordingly, depending on what type of waste it is. The type of waste that can be found at transfer stations is Municipal Solid Waste. This waste includes plastics, cardboard, electronic devices, rubber, furniture, paper, metals, etc. Depending on what type of waste is being dealt with, the waste will get either incinerated, dumped into a landfill, or brought to a recycling facility. Waste such as cardboard, plastic, paper, glass, metal, wood, and clothing get sent to recycling facilities while the rest are either dumped in a landfill, or it gets incinerated. Food and other decomposable materials get composted into organic material. This organic material can then be used in natural fertilizers.
To learn more about the Andover Transfer Station, I looked up their website on Google. Unfortunately, the only useful information that I pulled from there was that they were open Wednesday and Saturday 7:00am-5:00pm and Friday from 12:00pm-5:00pm. However, as I dug deeper into the website, I found a link that lead to a list of items that contain mercury. Mercury is illegal, and there is a list of prohibited items: fluorescent lamps, thermometers, thermostats, tilt switches, manometers, and button batteries are all on this list. Following the list is a Mercury Certification issued to the Andover Transfer Station.
After listening to conversations that were had in class and reading others’ blogs, I became much more educated on the topic and realized that a lot of what I thought I knew either wasn’t true, or I didn’t know the whole story. Since I wasn’t able to attend the APES journey to the transfer station, I do not have the hands-on experience that my peers have, I do not have much to reflect on. However, my wonderful accessibility to the internet aided me with this issue and I know am able to explain what exactly goes on at a transfer station, and what happens after the waste is properly sorted and disposed of.
Photo by Peppy Pettengill
Photo by Sarah Ferdinand
Photo by Sarah Ferdinand
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