Post any impressions, thoughts you had about the visit, photos, etc.
Environmental Economics
A City Tech OpenLab Course Site
Post any impressions, thoughts you had about the visit, photos, etc.
The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.
12:00
For those taking the tour of the SIMS Recycling Center, the tour begins at 12:00; plan to arrive 10 – 15 minutes early.
Where is the exact place in sunset park?
The visit of SIMS building was very impressive. Their welcome center was self-explanatory, Eadaoin Quinn, the representative, was very clear and gave us a very informative and useful presentation. The plant’s site and the plant by itself looked very appealing and brand new (no surprise that the building was very young). SIMS building is an example of sustainability in everything. First of all, it sorts recycling materials for further processing by using the state-of-art new technologies such as TiTech that is able to recognize and sort different plastics based on their chemical and physical properties. In addition, it utilizes green technologies such as solar energy and a planned wind mill. Before I visited the site, I was skeptical about its efficiency. But it appeared to be that the denied recycling material accounts to only 12%. It includes plastic bags, Styrofoam, bioplasctics, and e-waste. Despite their very informative welcome center and the appealing look of the plant by itself, I would suggest them to utilize more popularity techniques that would bring more attention to the problem and popularity of recycling, such as building sports yards (skate rinks) on their site or develop a more advanced tour that would look more like a museum. For example, it would be a great idea to give a secure access to the conveyor belts where visitors through a secure glass would be able to see how everything is being sorted out, rather than watching it on TV screens in the welcome center. Also, it would bring more attention to the plant if they were to make souvenirs out of recycling material for their visitors. For example, if one brings a plastic bottle and then SIMS takes it and transforms it into a medallion or statue, then it would entertain the visitor more.
SIM recycling facility is only a facility that sort out the different materials and distribute to other place for further process, the recycling rate depend on the market demand of the different waste. they don’t have real ability to transit the waste to goods. for example, if there is not market demand for the plastic bag, they will dump to the landfill; different color of glass can’t be sell to make the new bottles, only fit for construction. It still result to some type of waste and potential inefficiency of the waste recycling.
I was very impress with the tour to Sims Recycling Center.
The information that was provided was very informative and encouraging. The knowledge and understanding I gain from the Sims Recycling Center is something I will try to practice in my daily activities to help the environment as a whole. I was most impress by construction of the three artificial reefs to create intertidal habitat for marine and bird life.