The journey of the blue bag
Recycling cheaper than the landfill
Single-stream recycling has many problems, but it’s attractive to cities because it’s a system full of financial incentives for municipalities. The more people throw into their single-stream recycling piles, the more money the city saves.
Despite the city not meeting Pennsylvania’s Act 101 recycling law goal of 35 percent (most recent numbers put the city’s recycling rate at 17.2 percent), a 2015 city controller’s audit of the Bureau of Environmental Services’ Refuse and Recycling Division, found that trash collection tonnage is decreasing as recyclables collections is “increasing incrementally.”
Each year the city receives recycling program performance grants, based on recycling rates, under Act 101. Between 2005 and 2015, the most recent numbers available, the state granted Pittsburgh $4.5 million for residential and commercial recycling tonnage collected and $2 million for buying equipment, signage and other projects.
The city also saves when it takes materials to the materials recovery facility (Pittsburgh uses Recycle Source) rather than the landfill. Contracts show that the city pays between $25 and $29 per solid waste ton taken to two landfills, Waste Management in Moon and Allied Waste Systems in Imperial. For each ton of comingled recycling sold to Recycle Source, the city receives 60 percent of the materials’ value — based on a regional monthly price index — minus a $68 per ton fee for the labor of sorting.
If Recycle Source cannot bring to market what the city recycling truck dumps on its tipping floor, the city pays $40 per ton for Recycle Source to landfill it. The city is working on negotiating a better rate.