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Written by Eric May
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Wednesday, 23 April 2008 22:51 |
 Established in 2002, our car seat recycling program has a goal of recycing every expired, damaged, recalled or unuseable car seat we receive. Car seats are made of many recycleable components, but due to the labor required for deconstruction, most regular municipal recycling programs can not or will not take them. They do not have the resources to deal with a complex assembly like a car seat. This is where our program begins.
Begun by Bill Flinchbaugh out of frustration over old car seats ending up in the dumpster following car seat safety events. The collection of these 'old' car seats began and started to fill his garage while he worked with his local municipal recycling contractor to establish a process for handling and recycling his ever expanding collection of 'old' seats. While this process did allow him to establish one of the most complete collections of sample car seats available, the garage was filling up and his local recycler was in no hurry to take on more work. Almost a year later, he began developing a relationship with the Court system to attract 'volunteers' with a court mandated responsibility to give a little back to the community. Initially these volunteers assisted with car seat events in the area. Recognizing the labor pool he was collecting, Bill soon had these folks breaking down the car seats in the garage. Now he had most of the pieces in place and a plan was established with the local recycling contractor.
In late 2003, as Bill was finding himself with the opportunity to take on CCASAF, he was also encouraging local thrift stores and used children's goods stores to stop selling used car seats. Initial resistance was overcome by offering to collect the car seats received and provide assistance to families seeking car seats from the retailers. With a plan for used seat collection, an abundance of seats to assist families in need, a labor force to deconstruct old seats and some modest storage, all that was missing was a collection method.
Long a shade tree mechanic, Bill had been following the changes in tax code related to vehicle donations. With a relationship established from another foundation whose board he had served on, Bill began to ask friends with older box truck moving vehicles for a candidate for donation. (More on vehicle donation programs to follow.) A candidate truck was identified and the final puzzle piece was in place. The process is collection, inspection, sorting, counting, deconstruction, sorting component materials and delivery to the recycling center.
In 2005, over 750 car seats were collected and recycled. Our pace for 2006 exceeded 1200 seats. The volume of car seats collected in 2007 was just over 2000. We have already exceeded that number in June 2008 and are on pace to handle over 4000 this current year. Had I known what the success of this program might be, I would have done things a little differently. Additionally, the information on this web page has generated hundreds of phone calls from around the country. With assistance given to hospitals, community service organizations, local governments and many others, we now know of over 100 similar programs either up and running or getting close to operation across this great land. The efforts of those individuals are local and we take no credit other than maybe a little inspiration. Thank you to all of the folks who have taken this idea and made it theirs!
The weight of the collected and recycled materials has not been calculated with precision, but it is considerable. We figure for 2007 alone, about 1t tons of material was diverted from the landfill. What are the other green footprint aspects of this effort. We are working on that. to help you get an idea, an average car seat is about 15 pounds of #5 plastic (most common), cloth, foam, nylon harnesses, some polystyrene plastic and some metal. The bulk of the weight is the car seat shell made of the #5 plastic. This plastic, though not in high demand, is easily recyclable and often returns to us as outdoor furniture, plastic lumber, other childre's products or butter tubs. Most deliveries made to the local recycler are between a pickup truck load and a partly or full 15 foot box truck. All recyclable components are delivered to the recycler. Non-recyclable parts, mostly nylon harness straps, polystyrene, foam and some cloth, are currently sent to the land fill. Some natural fabfic cloth covers are used for cleaning rags, given to quilters, used for cloth paper making classes or kept for seats in our loaner program. Synthetic fiber covers are a little more challenging. There are some area where they are collected for rug making or other re=processing.
Quick note; I just returned from the Kidz in Motion Conference where there was a session on 'Be Green, Recycle car seats!'. Hurray to to Tammy for her outstanding work in Oregon!
Additional details will be added as they develop, are discovered or shared with us. Check back here or my 'blog' page..
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 12 July 2008 20:40 )
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