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Wing reduces waste with recycling program

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Vincent Borden
  • 386th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  Bases in the U.S. Central Command, by virtue of their existence, produce enormous feats in support of the War on Terror, with excellent in-commission rates and mission accomplishments around areas in the Middle East and Afghanistan. In the accomplishment of those tasks, however, they also produce a lot of waste. In what amounts to environmentally conscious ingenuity with certain products that come with supporting the individual missions of more than 2,900 Airmen and coalition forces located in the area, the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing has come up with a solution to the waste problem. It involves thinking green.

Kwaku Siriboe, a contractor who works for a consult company with U.S. Air Forces Central, is the sole manager of the 386th AEW environmental flight, and as manager, the base's recycling program falls under his care. He handles all the hazardous waste material the base produces, finding ways to get rid of the used oil, old batteries and tons of garbage that comes with feeding thousands of people day in and day out. And he's found a way to make it lucrative.

Working with a local recycling company, Mr. Siriboe has improved a program that started with the problem of disposing of tons of empty plastic bottles and aluminum discarded by Airmen trying to stay hydrated in the region's arid climate. He has expanded the project to include hazardous materials, chlorofluorocarbons, metals such as copper and steel, and cardboard boxes, setting up a program that has resulted in payments that have amounted to $95,000 so far this year. 

The range of items that can be recycled allows individuals and workcenters of all types to get involved in the program.

Mr. Siriboe thinks much more could be made if stricter adherence to waste management was followed by every Airman at the wing. The constant deployment turnover is one of the reasons a sustained recyclable collection effort sees problems, as Airmen rotating in are unaware of the program. The lack of concentrated effort by some Airmen and workcenters is another.

"If we could successfully collect even 70 percent of the items that could be recycled, we could make a lot of money," Mr. Siriboe said.

But Mr. Siriboe isn't just concerned with the dividends. He collects waste material and items that don't pay dividends, such as wooden pallets and old paints products, and finds environmentally responsible solutions to their disposal as well. For those items, he usually hands them off to the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office (DRMO), which dispose of them locally in environmentally responsible ways. The effort reduces the total footprint the wing has on the Persian Gulf region as a whole.

That reduction, Mr. Siriboe said, is all dependent on the amount of Airmen that make a conscious effort to recycle. And he's made it easy for them.

Large metal bins are located in high traffic areas throughout the base, such as the dormitory living area, the dining facility and the Logistics Staging Area. The bins are color coded and labeled; blue bins are for plastics, white bins are for cardboard, and the occasional red bin is for old electronics.

The blue bins are all plastics and aluminums for everything except the milk bottles Airmen can take out from the base dining facility. The heat and direct exposure to sunlight over a sustained period of time makes the bottles an attraction for flies, and develops unpleasant smells.

Additionally, although the contractors that collect the recyclables have an obligation to sift through items that are not in the right bins, personnel assigned to the base should strive to make sure they put items in the correct bin when discarding them. Some items thrown into recycle bins, such as old furniture and electronics, are left beside the recycle bins by the contractors who catch them as they're being dumped into trucks.

Mr. Siriboe, who is on a yearlong deployment here, said he would like to see a joint effort from everyone on base in collecting recyclables. Proceeds from recycled products are paid by the ton, and are paid according to the local market value, which can fluctuate from month to month.

The proceeds from the program are distributed to each group in the wing, in order to supplement morale, wellness and recreation programs.

In effect, by consistently watching where they throw their trash, Airmen are improving their quality of life while deployed to the wing.

But even without the money paid from recycle products, the program is a success. It allows the base to get rid of its waste products and hazardous materials virtually free of charge.

In that way, the wing is showing that being environmentally conscious doesn't have to cost much, and it can be effective. The value of the effort on the environment is extraordinarily valuable, both in reducing the wing's economic footprint and improving relations with the host nation that supports it.