Recycling changes will hit city taxpayers

Mayor expects ‘substantial’ cost

If the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency stops accepting single-stream recycling, Kingston taxpayers will pay substantially more to keep the practice going in the city, Mayor Steve Noble said Monday.

Noble said the city probably would have to make improvements to its transfer station on Route 32 and hire additional Department of Public Works (DPW) employees to handle recyclables that are brought to the station, rather than directly to the Resource Recovery Agency.

“DPW would still bring the material to the DPW transfer station, but we would need to make structural modifications for that to be able to happen,” Noble said, “... and hire additional DPW staff to manage the material before the proposed [changeover] date of January 1.”

The city also would have to find a new place to ship the recyclables it collects.

“We would have to identify whether that company will provide us trailers and will haul from our transfer station or if we would need to provide the trailers,” Noble said in an email. “We also may need to go out to bid for a long-haul trucking company.”

The mayor said the potential added cost for taxpayers has not been figured out.

“We do not yet have cost calculations on how much this change would cost the city, but it would likely be substantial,” he said.

Noble said he plans to

speak about the matter an Resource Recovery Agency public hearing scheduled for 5 p.m. June 14 at the Ulster County Office Building, 244 Fair St., Kingston.

“I encourage residents who are concerned about this shift of responsibility from the county agency to the city taxpayers to come out [to the hearing] and voice their concerns,” Noble said.

The Resource Recovery Agency announced in April that it probably will stop accepting single-stream, or commingled, recyclables starting Jan. 1, 2019, and will increase its fees for accepting single-stream loads until the new policy is in place.

Single-stream recycling allows residents to put all recyclable materials — paper, cardboard, glass, metal and plastic — into a single bin for collection. Municipalities and private haulers in Ulster County generally bring the recyclables they collect to the Resource Recovery Agency. But the agency says it’s difficult for if to then get rid of singlestream loads because some of the materials are contaminated.

Discontinuing the practice of accepting singlestream recycling was proposed after Resource Recovery Agency officials said the $20 per ton that the agency charges to accept commingled loads covers only about one-third of the agency’s disposal cost.

They also noted two collection centers in the region closed recently and that there is concern that the remaining facility, in Beacon, will stop accepting commingled loads.