A price to pay for recycling bad habits

It’s apparent that residents in the city of Lowell, as well as other Massachusetts communities, still haven’t come to grips with the dramatic change in the municipal recycling landscape.

Three years after China, the world’s largest importer of that waste, announced it would no longer accept the high concentration of impurities found in the huge volumes of paper and plastic it previously received from the United States, cities and towns are still struggling to reduce those contaminants to less costly levels.

For years, recycling companies would pick up a community’s recyclables at little or no cost, due to the fees China paid to accept and repurpose those unwanted pieces of cardboard and other debris.

But now, due to China purity requirements that can exceed 99%, there’s virtually no market for recyclables.

And so, what conglomerate collection concerns like Waste Management formerly took virtually for free now comes at an ever-escalating fee – especially if it includes a high rate of non-recyclable or corrupted items.

According to published reports, Boston now pays nearly $5 million annually for recycling, up from just $200,000 in 2017.

It’s the same relative story in smaller cities and other communities.

Municipalities have ramped up efforts to promote responsible recycling, as well as identifying and cracking down on recycling scofflaws.

As Lowell and other municipalities have discovered, contaminants cause an already hefty recycling expense to inflict further damage to a community’s bottom line.

Lowell saw its recycling costs jump from $82,000 in 2018 to a baseline hit of $400,000 in 2019 – along with a $292,000 recycling contaminant charge.

Since then, the city has conducted a series of recycling audits in an effort to reduce both unacceptable items and that contaminant penalty.

At last week’s City Council meeting, City Manager Eileen Donoghue briefed the body on the latest inspection.

Conducted in January, the audit determined the city’s recycling contamination rate at 24%. That’s a decrease from last September’s 38% rate, but still not low enough to avoid a contamination penalty.

According to DPW Commissioner Christine Clancy, If the city doesn’t get the contamination rate below 20%, it will need to increase the recycling fees residents pay.

“Please pay attention,” Donoghue intoned for the benefit of the TV audience. “It’s costing everybody money; this is coming out of the taxpayer’s pockets.”

According to a report provided by Clancy, items such as plastic trash bags with recycling or trash content, construction metal, plastic film, wood, Styrofoam, textiles like clothes and shoes, dirt and other construction debris are the major contamination culprits.

To help spread the word and educate residents about recycling contamination, the DPW has conducted site inspections and will be sending out warnings and tickets for violations.

Councilor Vesna Nuon suggested the city try different forms of outreach, including going door to door, much like for the census.

It’s time for Lowell and other communities to take a heavier-handed approach to recycling violators.

Under Gunther Wellenstein, the Lowell’s former solid waste/recycling coordinator, the city issued numerous citations and $25 fines for improper recycling.

That proactive approach should be instituted when Lowell conducts its next audit in October.

For the record, eligible recycling items include newspapers, paper board (tissue, cereal boxes), office paper, junk mail, phone books, catalogues, flattened cardboard, glass bottles and jars, tin/ aluminum, metal/steel cans, plastic bottles, jars and jugs.