Recycling fees will be subject of hearing

TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. » The Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency board will hold a public hearing June 14 on making monthly adjustments to fees for singlestream recycling based on the agency’s disposal costs between July and December.

The public hearing is scheduled for 5 p.m. in the Legislature chamber on the sixth floor of the County Office Building, 244 Fair St., Kingston.

Costs for the disposal of single-stream — or commingled — recycling were discussed during a board meeting Wednesday at which agency officials said haulers pay the agency $20 per ton to drop off the materials but the agency pays more than $51 per ton to turn the items over to a facility in Beacon,

And “that number doesn’t include our [$15-per-ton] handling costs,” said board Chairman Fred Wadnola.

Agency officials say single-stream disposal costs so far for 2018 have totaled $83,061 and have risen steadily in recent months.

The June 14 hearing also will provide an opportunity for the public to comment on whether the agency should stop accepting single-stream recycling, in which residents can put all recyclable items together in a single bin, beginning in 2019.

If the change is implemented, the agency still would accepted separated recyclables, which Wadnola said fulfills the agency’s charter.

“There was never any intention about single stream and in those days. No one even talked about it,” he said.

Kingston Mayor Steve Noble, who came into office in the middle the city’s conversion to single-stream recycling, which began in 2011, objects to ending single-stream recycling. He told the agency board recently that “it’s your responsibility to ... manage recycling in the county. Obviously, as recycling markets have changed, the agency has not necessarily changed.”

A main reason the agency wants to move away from single-stream recycling is the largest buyer of such materials, China, has sharply reduced its purchases because, too often, items are improperly mixed.