Trash agency budget adds recycling disposal fee

The Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency board has adopted a 2017 budget that includes a fee of $20 per ton for haulers to dispose of single-stream recycling, a practice that until now has been free.

The $14.1 million spending plan was adopted Wednesday. It’s 1.8 percent larger than the agency’s 2016 budget.

The budget presumes $12.9 million in revenue from solid waste disposal fees, up from about $12.87 million in the 2016 budget, and $160,000 in revenue from recycling fees, up from $35,000 this year.

Also in the agency’s 2017 budget is $218,400 in revenue from the agency’s charges to municipalities. That’s up from the 2016 budgeted amount of $176,124. The higher municipal revenue is due to the “pull” rate being raised from $62 to $75.

Agency Executive Director Tim Rose earlier this year said the new fee to accept single-stream recycling from haulers is the result of the agency having limited ability to sort the materials.

“We have a dual-stream plant here and can process the material and still make a little money on it,” he said. “With single-stream, we can’t process and we have to send it out.”

The agency’s 2017 budget also includes:

• $3 million for solid waste hauling contracts, up 4 percent from 2016.

• $2.6 million for solid waste disposal, up 3.6 percent.

• $2.3 million for debt repayments, down 3.1 percent. • $1.6 million for salaries, up 0.9 percent.

• $578,000 for employee health insurance, up 13.4 percent.

• $340,000 for pension payments, down 9.3 percent.

• $244,000 for transfer station operations, down 8.2 percent.