THE SKYROCKETING COST OF RECYCLING: TRASHED
Collapse of recycling market, rising costs have towns mulling how to pay
It used to pay for itself, but the rising cost of recycling is now forcing places like Parkside to reconsider how they cover the expense of the environmentally friendly feature.
And they’re not alone. Towns across the county are trying to figure out how to deal with the reversal of fortune - a program that used to provide revenue is now costs towns big bucks.
“We are in a pickle,” said Parkside Council President Shirley Purcival. “It’s not that we want to stop recycling. We’re looking at what can we do for our residents.”
Purcival said 10 years ago, municipalities could actually take in about $35 per ton in recycling, but that sum dwindled to just $1.22 a ton over the years before turning around to the point where municipalities now have to pay to have recycling hauled off.
“It was costing around $1.17 a ton to get rid of,” she explained. “Now, it’s $65 a ton to get rid of.”
That, she noted, is a 3,767 percent increase.
And it’s only expected to rise. Purcival said Wednesday that the borough had just received word that recycling will go to $85 a ton this week and could be as high as $120 by the end of the year.
“We’re one of the first to come across this issue because of the expense,” she said. “I’m sure all munici- palities and townships are going to be facing it.”
Dollars and sense
Parkside’s current residential trash fee is $180 a year and the borough of 2,430 people can average around nine tons of recycling materials a month, Purcival said. At $65 per ton over 12 months, that works out to about $7,000 annually for recycling alone. At $85, it rises to $9,180, and at $120 per ton, Parkside would spend nearly $13,000 per year.
The borough’s total annual budget comes in at less than $1.5 million, of which about $137,000 is currently allocated to sanitation.
Purcival said Parkside’s hauler, B&L Disposal in Glenolden, has been splitting the cost of the disposal fee with the borough, but that will end with 2018. The borough is currently seeking bids for a new contract for 2019-2021, she said, but won’t have the exact numbers from the Delaware County Solid Waste Authority for its 2019 fees until October. Those fees are expected to rise as well, but by how much is anyone’s guess right now.
Solid Waste Authority representatives were unavailable to comment.
Purcival said part of the problem for smaller towns like Parkside is revenue, which comes mainly from residents.
“If you’re looking at larger municipalities, townships, they have more of a cushion in their budget,” Purcival said. “We’re a homeowner tax base. We have very little business.”
Upper Darby Dilemma
Upper Darby Chief Administrator Tom Judge Jr. said the township’s sanitation budget is part of the operating budget, so the fact that the tax base is larger has little impact, but it can dip into a fund balance if necessary.
As recently as 2015, Judge said Upper Darby was making $6 or $7 per ton off recycling. That changed in 2017, with Upper Darby now paying $35 per ton, the same as Parkside.
Judge said Upper Darby forecast paying about $37 per ton when crafting the 2018 budget, but the township’s former recycling hauler stopped service in March, forcing the township to switch to Waste Management in Philadelphia, at $55 per ton.
“But more importantly, if the recycling is contaminated with other trash, we’re paying $150 a ton,” said Judge. “Those two numbers are drastic.”
In July alone, he said, the township produced 10 tons of contaminated recycling, at a cost of $1,500.
Purcival said about 20 percent of all recycling materials are going into landfills due to contaminated loads.
Upper Darby residents currently pay $190 annually for trash and recycling, said Judge, and produce 4,400 tons to 4,800 tons of recycling materials per year on average. At $55 per ton, that works out to between $242,000 and $264,000.
The township budgeted $180,000 this year for recycling, but that was before the hauler switch in March.
“To our benefit, January, February and March weren’t $55, but for the rest of the year, I’ll be happy if it stays at $55,” Judge said. “If it does go over, we jump into our fund balance. We’re not going to hit that until October or November.”
While Parkside could consider ending its recycling program, larger municipalities like Upper Darby are required by state law to collect recycling from every residential property.
“We don’t have an option – we can’t not pick up recycling,” Judge said. “(It’s) another unfunded mandate and it’s one we have to pay particular attention to going into the budget portion of our year, to focus on what we’re going to charge in 2019.”
Think globally, act locally
Purcival said the main driving force for the turnaround is China, which implemented strict national policies in 2017 and 2018 to curb plastic waste from entering the country and clean up pollution.
A recent study published in the journal Science Advances found China has taken in about 45 percent of all recyclable plastics from other nations since 1992. With that dumping ground now closed, other countries are scrambling to find somewhere else to offload more than 122 million tons of plastic that are expected to be produced by 2030, the report said. Smaller Asian nations that have seen an increase in plastics since the ban took effect in December 2017 are also considering similar bans as they become overburdened, according to the Associated Press.
“That’s the biggest problem, nobody wants to take this anymore because there’s absolutely no money in it,” said Purcival. “So everybody is going to be facing the same issue with this, which is what are you going to do with it?”
She remembers when she would visit schools to encourage students to reduce, reuse and recycle, but it seems that consumers today rely too much on the recycling aspect and not enough on the other options, she said.
Purcival said it is high time to return to repurposing some recyclable waste, such as turning plastic milk cartons into bird feeders, delivering old newspapers to veterinary offices, or simply buying frozen vegetables instead of canned.
“It’s very sad that the market is so overcrowded with recycling materials,” she said. “The United States does not do anything with it. We don’t have manufacturers that do things with this.”
She pointed to Great Britain using recycled glass and plastics in their road repair materials. And, she asked, if the amount of recycled plastic bottles can go around the Earth three times, why don’t more people buy reusable bottles?
How to Pay
At the borough level, Purcival said council is mulling its options, including having residents who want to recycle contract with haulers privately. That’s done in other places, she noted, like Thornbury, Concord and Nether Providence.
But, Purcival added, “Our community is mixed young families and seniors. My block alone, I have seven or eight retired people just on my block. So, we’re trying to get the best option for everyone.”
Another option would be to increase the trash fee, she said.
“Right now, for $180 a year, we offer two trash pick-ups a week, two recyclings a month and heavy trash pick-up every month except for December,” she said. “I think we do very well by our residents.”
Yet, Purcival said, a small but vocal group of residents accuse council of opposing recycling, which she said simply isn’t true. “Everybody on council is extremely concerned about the money issue and recycling as a whole,” she said. “We can’t make a decision based on money, nor should we make a decision based on how many people are recycling.”
Purcival said borough council is continuing to evaluate the situation and hopes to have a decision by their Aug. 22 council meeting.
“It’s a hard decision which way to go,” she said. “We’ve all thought about it and we’ll continue to think about what’s best for everybody.”
“If you’re looking at larger municipalities, townships, they have more of a cushion in their budget. We’re a homeowner tax base. We have very little business.” — Parkside Council President Shirley Purcival