Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Plan to end recycling is reversed
Corporate giant Waste Management said it will change its plans and allow mixed-paper recycling in Broward County after all. The stunning about-face came late Friday afternoon to the surprise of city leaders who were already getting push-back from residents. Officials and residents applauded the reversal.
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Corporate giant Waste Management said it will change its plans and allow mixed-paper recycling in Broward County after all.
The stunning about-face came late Friday afternoon to the surprise of city leaders who were already getting push-back from residents.
Waste Management had sent letters to 14 cities letting them know they could no longer recycle mixed-paper starting Aug. 1. That included newspapers, mail, magazines, glossy inserts, pamphlets, catalogs, print and office paper and school paper.
The reason is because people had been tossing too much garbage into their recycling bins,
contaminating the load and making the recycled product difficult to sell; the contamination rate for Broward’s recycling hovers around 37%. Waste Management said tons of paper was left without a buyer within the United States or abroad.
Mixed paper “has no viable market” to be resold as recyclables, according to the notice.
The 13 other Broward cities that Waste Management serves were also expected to eventually be weaned off mixed-paper recycling as well.
But late Friday the company said in a new letter to the cities that “we have heard from Broward County officials and several of our municipal customers who have asked if it would be possible to continue recycling mixed paper even in these challenging markets. We certainly want to work with you to honor that request.”
Cities applauded the reversal.
Coral Springs Commissioner Larry Vignola said he has even been asked by school children, “Why can’t we recycle paper?” which was a tough conversation to have.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “We teach kids at a young age to be environmentally conscience and look out for the planet.”
And, “it would have been really hard to get our residents to stop recycling paper,” he said. “This is a great step forward and I think for all cities and all residents of Broward County this is a really good thing.”
In Friday’s notice, Waste Management urged the cities to help keep the contamination rates down: “We also encourage you to consider Code Enforcement programs to address non-recyclable material in your residential recycling containers,” the letter states.
It said it would try to sell the recycled items, but had a backup plan: “When we cannot find a market for mixed paper, the material will be transported to a waste-to-energy facility for disposal, if that option is available,” the letter reads, referring to the process of burning the recycles for energy.
Waste Management does not have the facilities for burning recycling for energy, but said it would send it to Wheelabrator South or the Palm Beach County Solid Waste Authority.
There has been mounting dissatisfaction in Broward with the megahauler and some city officials suspected the initial plan by Waste Management to end paper recycling would bolster plans to create their own disposal systems.
Broward cities have been meeting to figure out how to handle their own garbage and recycling, possibly with the creation of a new taxing district.
The committee is called the Broward County Solid Waste and Recycling Working Group and has the backing of Broward County government, which wants to participate in a future new program.
But Daniel Stermer, Weston’s mayor, and the chairman of the working committee, said Waste Management’s change of heart won’t have any impact on their long-term plan.
“Their decision to now continue to recycle has no impact on the efforts of the working group to determine how we’re going to continue our disposal and recycling for the next 50 to 75 years,” he said late Friday.
Still, “we applaud them for their decision to retract their decision to recycle paper. We didn’t understand it nor were we given any notice about it.”
But policy can always change again.
“The current recycling market is challenging for processors and our customers,” Waste Management said in its letter, reminding its cities they can always drop their recycling contracts and adding “likewise, Waste Management will continue to monitor market conditions and contamination rates in the future regarding mixed paper.”