Future RAMsters Sandy Loyd, Connie Collopy, and John van der Harst collected bags of compacted and uncompacted waste to analyze for recoverability potential. The examination took place at a meeting of another group dedicated to the subject. Those who thought such groups should only talk about it were not happy to see this activity at a nearby table. Connie loved it. Quite a contrast. It foretold a future split between the talkers and the doers.

Two major principles emerged:

Wet/dry systems are the most cost-effective approach for many waste streams. As such, the disposal industry is more eager to attack these than most other alternatives. That makes it more important to gain hands-on experience for these, in order to:

When processing is set up for wet/dry streams, often mixed wastes are available to try recovering materials from, for comparative stats.

The following reflect recovery levels from various pilots that RAM members have participated in:

What is not recovered in these pilots, generally would be recovered if markets developed for zero-waste schemes were available. See Methodology for these. For more detailed descriptions of these pilots, there are articles about them in both RAM newsletters. See Newsletters, for these.