https://www.americancityandcounty.com/wp-content/themes/acc_child/assets/images/logo/footer-logo.png
  • Home
  • Co-op Solutions
  • Commentaries
  • News
  • In-Depth
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Podcast
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Events
    • How to Contribute
    • Municipal Cost Index – Archive
    • Equipment Watch Page
    • American City & County Awards
  • Magazine
    • Back
    • Digital Editions
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • Advertise
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Statement
    • Terms of Service
American City and County
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Co-op Solutions
  • Commentaries
  • News
  • In-Depth
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Podcasts
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Events
    • How to Contribute
    • American City & County Awards
    • Municipal Cost Index
    • Equipment Watch Page
  • Magazine
    • Back
    • Digital Editions
    • Reprints & Reuse
    • Subscribe to GovPro
    • Manage GovPro Subscription
    • Advertise
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Stament
    • Terms of Service
  • newsletter
  • Administration
  • Economy & Finance
  • Procurement
  • Public Safety
  • Public Works & Utilities
  • Smart Cities & Technology
acc.com

Public Works & Utilities


Is recycling disposable?

Is recycling disposable?

As local government revenues continue to shrink, city and county leaders are searching for ways to balance their budgets, often by scaling back the services
  • Written by Kivi Leroux Miller
  • 1st May 2002

As local government revenues continue to shrink, city and county leaders are searching for ways to balance their budgets, often by scaling back the services they provide to their residents. Curbside recycling is one of the many services scrutinized during financial hard times, but few officials are willing to trash it. “Recycling is competing with other big policy issues, but it’s a service that people have come to expect, and they would be angry if it disappeared,” says David Robinson, recycling coordinator for Philadelphia.

Recycling coordinators in cities big and small, with recycling rates high and low, say the same thing: Their residents want curbside recycling, and they expect their local officials to make sure they get it. “I joke that if we eliminated the curbside program as a cost-cutting measure, a mob would descend on City Hall and hang me from the flag pole,” says Mark Bowers, solid waste program manager for Sunnyvale, Calif. “It’s not too far from the truth, I think.”

Benefits support growth; pace is slowing

Unlike other government-subsidized services, such as drinking water and wastewater treatment, recycling does not produce readily visible benefits, making it an easy target for cuts. Nevertheless, the economic and environmental benefits are real.

A study last year by the Alexandria, Va.-based National Recycling Coalition found that the recycling industry employs 1.1 million people nationwide, generating an annual payroll of $37 billion and grossing $236 billion in annual sales. Those figures translate into a substantive revenue stream for local governments. Furthermore, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has presented results of studies demonstrating that recycling saves natural resources and energy.

Because of those benefits, curbside recycling continues to grow in the United States, albeit much more slowly than it did in the boom times of the late 1980s and early 1990s. According to Jerry Powell, editor of Resource Recycling magazine, more than two dozen U.S. communities — including Tampa, Fla.; Nashville, Tenn.; and San Diego — have launched new curbside programs or expanded existing ones in the past year alone.

At the same time, seven programs with low participation in Alabama, Kentucky and Texas ceased operations. This year, cities such as Baltimore and Albuquerque, N.M., are rearranging or cutting back their schedules to better consolidate pickups.

Integration can help keep costs in check

To help their curbside programs get off the ground and thrive, local governments are relying on a variety of tools. For example, recycling coordinators are integrating recycling into their solid waste management systems, emphasizing public education and outreach, and establishing long-term contracts to hedge against the sometimes wild swings in recycling markets.

In 1990, Baltimore County, Md., integrated curbside recycling into its solid waste program by substituting one trash day with one recycling day. For each of 230,000 households, the county took away one of two weekly trash pickups and added once-a-week curbside pickup of recyclables.

The move held the county’s collection costs roughly in check, says Charlie Reighart, recycling coordinator for the county. “A program like ours is insulated somewhat from the charge that recycling is an expensive proposition,” he notes.

“We’ve stuck by the decision [to remove the second trash collection day] and never looked back,” Reighart says. Today, the county’s combined rate for commercial and residential recycling is approximately 40 percent.

Like Baltimore County, Madison, Wis., operates its curbside recycling as part of an integrated collection system. “The city collects everything, so we can look at our whole system at once,” says George Dreckman, the city’s recycling coordinator.

By using the same trucks to handle trash pickup as it does to handle recycling pickup, Madison has been able to eliminate six garbage trucks and the costs of owning and operating them. According to Dreckman, communities that operate recycling separately from other waste collection activities — or those that privatize that part of their systems — do not realize those savings.

Integrated programs have other payoffs, as Bowers discovered in a detailed analysis of Sunnyvale’s costs for curbside collection and other elements of the city’s waste management system. In evaluating the program’s performance, Bowers looked at the cost of collecting and processing materials, the revenues from the sale of materials, and the impact of diversion on tipping fees and landfill charges. The city’s net diversion costs are $128 per ton for curbside recyclables; $118 per ton for yard trimmings; and $38 per ton for cardboard.

Sunnyvale’s source separation programs — including curbside and yard trimmings collections and mixed-waste processing at the city’s materials recovery facility — are necessary for the city to surpass California’s 50 percent diversion requirements, Bowers says. As a result, curbside recycling is a fixture, protected from the cuts that plague financially tight times.

Outreach must hit the mark

Local governments that struggle to boost curbside recycling rates often attribute their difficulties to lack of staff energy, a lack of commitment to increasing participation rates over the long term and inconvenient service for residents. According to David Robinson, recycling coordinator for Philadelphia’s Streets Department, outreach also affects a program’s performance.

Like Baltimore County, Philadelphia has provided curbside recycling for more than 10 years, yet its residential recycling rate has never surpassed 7 percent. Robinson attributes that, in part, to an outreach program that had historically failed to garner attention. “You need an exciting program, not just brochures and door hangers,” he notes.

Robinson’s office launched a new outreach campaign in March to grab residents’ attention. Using television, radio and print advertising, the campaign urges residents to comply with the city’s 1987 ordinance requiring participation in the recycling program.

Robinson is optimistic that the advertising — combined with improvements in collection efficiency and customer service, will bring about the behavioral changes he seeks. While the city’s goal is to reach a double-digit recycling rate in three years, Robinson’s goal is for the city to reach three times the current rate in that time.

Riding out the market shifts

Although some communities measure recycling success by participation rates, many base their judgment on economic performance. The economics of curbside recycling are subject to unpredictable market swings, and, as a result, a recycling program that makes money one year may lose money the next. By signing long-term contracts with processors, local governments can moderate the ups and downs.

In Baltimore, city crews collect commingled recyclables from approximately 203,000 households. Those materials are processed by private firms that have recently signed long-term contracts with the city.

As of March 2002, Baltimore received $11.50 per ton of mixed paper, which includes corrugated containers and newsprint, from its paper processor. The city paid $11.50 per ton to another processor to handle the city’s glass, metals and plastics. (It is a coincidence that the figures, which are adjusted quarterly, are currently the same, says Dale Thompson, chief of solid waste education and enforcement for the city.) Because the city collects more fiber tonnage than it does mixed containers, it earns a net revenue on the sale of recyclables.

According to Thompson, the city’s contracts are structured to ensure that recycling is never more expensive than disposal. The agreements dictate that the city will never pay more than $34 per ton to process the recyclables, which is the amount it costs the city to dispose of a ton of garbage at the nearby waste-to-energy facility. “With these new contracts, recycling is helping us with the budget for the first time,” Thompson says. “It will help us in prolonging all of the services the city offers.”

Other local governments ensure net revenue by limiting the types of material they collect. For example, Albuquerque collects office paper, newspaper, corrugated containers, steel and aluminum cans, and HDPE and PET plastics at the curb; but residents who want to recycle glass must take their bottles to one of 15 drop-off locations around the city. “We take a conservative outlook,” says Will Hoffman, training specialist for the city’s Solid Waste Management Department. “We only collect materials curbside with stable, sustainable markets.”

By diligently following that approach, the city has kept its recycling fee under $2.00 per month per household, Hoffman says. (That figure represents a 30 percent increase over the original fee established more than 10 years ago.) The city diverts approximately 20 percent of its waste stream, and Hoffman expects that volume to remain steady.

Although Albuquerque is comfortable with selective collection, the cost-control method is not feasible for every community. For example, cities required to meet local or state diversion levels usually need to collect materials such as glass and certain grades of paper, even if markets for those materials are poor.

In development

As communities work to ensure growth of their curbside recycling programs, coordinators are hoping for state and federal help — especially in developing markets for the sale of recycled material and in developing consumer outreach and education programs. According to Kate Krebs, executive director for the National Recycling Coalition, the federal government’s buy recycled policy will ensure a market to some degree. However, she notes that help most likely will come in the form of voluntary initiatives, such as those promoted by the National Electronic Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI). Organized by the Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, NEPSI brings public and private stakeholders together to develop solutions for collecting, reusing and recycling electronic equipment.

Even as they wait for new markets to develop, local governments will continue to field demands by residents for recycling services. For communities in which recycling remains viable, integration, education and long-term contracting are the tools of success.

Kivi Leroux Miller is a freelance environmental writer based in Lexington, N.C.

Tags: Public Works & Utilities

Related


  • American City & County’s 2020 Crown Communities Awards
    Projects nominated for American City & County's annual Crown Communities Awards are judged on uniqueness, short- and long-term value to the community and effective/innovative financing.
  • 2020 Crown Communities Awards winner: Rock Hill, S.C.'s My Ride
    Rock Hill, S.C.’s My Ride project is a great example of how a city can solve multiple issues with one innovative project. My Ride is an all-electric, fare-free, fixed-route bus system that operates within Rock Hill (pop. 75,000). Seven electric buses ferry passengers over four routes that span across major corridors in the city. The […]
  • How small cities are tackling lead service line replacement
    “We move Heaven and earth,” says Montana Birt. A transplant from Georgia, Birt is a pastor in a local church in Thorp, Wisc., the smallest of cities with a population of just more than 1,600. His more earthly endeavor, however, involves digging up and replacing lead pipes that threaten to poison his neighbors’ water in […]
  • Six tips for making sure your dispatch is doing all the right moves
    Planning, design, construction, maintenance and waste disposal are a few aspects public works departments deal with daily. It seems like a great deal of specialized work and reporting because it absolutely is. And all of it routed through a dispatch center. Without the right tools in place, a dispatcher cannot keep things running smoothly. Nor […]

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your American City and County account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • The future of transportation – leveraging smart solutions to boost user experience
  • Five reasons why city managers should put utility vehicles to work
  • Six cities share $745,000 in grants for sustainability projects
  • The uncertain future of community composting in New York City

White papers


Discover How Public Sector Officials are Monitoring and Managing Overtime in This New White Paper

22nd February 2021

How to Assemble a Successful Government Grant Proposal

5th February 2021

The Rise of Procurement’s Next Normal

5th February 2021
view all

Events


PODCAST


Young Leaders Episode 4 – Cyril Jefferson – City Councilman, High Point, North Carolina

13th October 2020

Young Leaders Episode 3 – Shannon Hardin – City Council President, Columbus, Ohio

27th July 2020

Young Leaders Episode 2 – Christian Williams – Development Services Planner, Goodyear, Ariz.

1st July 2020
view all

Twitter


AmerCityCounty

American City & County’s 2020 Exemplary Public Servant of the Year Award dlvr.it/RtZbX2

26th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

American City & County’s 2020 Crown Communities Awards dlvr.it/RtZbVz

26th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

2020 Crown Communities Awards winner: Rock Hill, S.C.’s My Ride dlvr.it/RtZSFp

26th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

Three communities hosting Augmented Reality Developer Challenge competitions dlvr.it/RtZ94D

26th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

Using data to improve emergency response resources dlvr.it/RtVSc0

25th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

How small cities are tackling lead service line replacement dlvr.it/RtV9G8

25th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

COVID-19 and pivoting into a new year: It may be 2021, but did we really leave 2020? dlvr.it/RtQRcr

24th February 2021
AmerCityCounty

Six tips for making sure your dispatch is doing all the right moves dlvr.it/RtQBvl

24th February 2021

Newsletters

Sign up for American City & County’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about local governments.

Resale Insights Dashboard

The Resale Insights Dashboard provides model-level data for the entire used equipment market to help you save time and money.

Municipal Cost Index

Updated monthly since 1978, our exclusive Municipal Cost Index shows the effects of inflation on the cost of providing municipal services

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital audience? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • IWCE’s Urgent Communications
  • IWCE Expo

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us

FOLLOW American City and County ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2021 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X