New Airport Recycling Program Yields Skeptics ATLANTA, GA (WABE) - The world's busiest airport today announced a new recycling initiative that it claims will divert up to 70 percent of its waste from landfills. Hartsfield-Jackson officials say it will also be easier for passengers, who will just throw ALL their trash into any of the containers.

But as WABE's Odette Yousef reports, some are skeptical of that approach.

The airport only recycles 3% of the 70 tons of trash it generates per day. With the new program, officials say that will increase, AND cut down on customer confusion.

Tom Nissalke is the Environmental and Technical Services director:

TOM NISSALKE: You don't have to pre-sort your materials. You don't have to put your plastics in the plastics container, you don't have to put your paper in the paper container, it all goes into the one container, it all gets carted off the airport and over to Waste Pro's facility, they do the separation themselves.

Waste Pro is the airport's solid waste handling company. It's building a $3 million expansion of its facility to sort the trash.

But Frank Killoran of the paper company Pratt Industries, says the airport's approach won't yield usable materials:

KILLORAN: that the materials that are recovered are dirty, they're covered with food waste, since it was once mixed with food waste. So when you go and try to sell those materials back into industry, nobody wants them, because they're filthy.

Pratt Industries makes corrugated, recycled packaging, and Killoran says similar facilities have failed in the past.

Odette Yousef, WABE News.
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