Recycling profitable here despite U.S. trend
by Carli Brosseau on Dec. 09, 2008, under Local, SpecialCity bucking the trend faced by others thanks to a key contract
Each day, Tucson recycling coordinator Don Gibson reads the industry news: Recycling companies going under. Cities asking residents to stockpile their goods.
Still, he feels lucky.
“Things are pretty good for us right now,” he said Monday.
In October – the last time the city received a check for its recycled materials – the figure above the signature was $133,687.34.
That’s the amount Tucson made on 3,797 tons of paper, plastic and glass that were recycled into construction materials.
But with the housing market in the dumps, commodity prices are falling fast. Cardboard, for example, fell from about $55 a load in August to $35 in October, Gibson said. He expects the November figures to show an even more dramatic drop.
While many municipalities are slashing the array of goods they collect to stay in the black, Tucson is making no service changes, officials said.
Tucson now makes about $100 per ton of recycled materials, Gibson said. If that number went even $15 in the negative, it still would be worth continuing the program, he said, adding it has brought in almost $10 million over the seven years it’s been in place.
Even with negative returns, Tucson would be saving money through diverting trash from its landfills, which have to be maintained forever, he said.
The key to the city’s winning formula is its contract with Recycle America, which is run by Waste Management.
“We are pretty fortunate that we signed a contract with Recycle America,” Gibson said. “It’s the largest deliverer of this type of recyclables in the U.S.”
Recycle America can guarantee volume and quality, putting it first in line when recyclers are buying materials, he said. That, in turn, gives Tucson an advantage when the market is tough.
Under the contract, Recycle America sells what Tucson collects and keeps half the revenue. The city gets the other 50 percent, minus a tipping fee, now $16.86 per ton.
The other part of the equation – the cost of collecting the recyclables – is more difficult to quantify.
Seven years ago, the city directed its drivers to pick up recyclables once a week and trash once a week, instead of the twice-weekly garbage collections.
Environmental Services spokeswoman Christina Polsgrove said the total cost of those pickups is about $24 million a year, paid through fees. That doesn’t mean recyclables make up half that cost.
Polsgrove said there are differences between trash and recyclable collection in volume, hours worked and tipping fees, as well as the more intangible costs of extending the life of the Los Reales landfill, which will likely soon become the only public dump in Pima County.
“It’s really a complicated thing,” she said.
