Lack of green for recycling spurs some drastic steps

Gordon Martin watches the piles of stacked-up cardboard and other recyclables at Wellesley's recycling and disposal facility grow larger every day as the value of the waste plummets.

Martin, the facility's superintendent, usually sells the recyclables, which brought some $600,000 to the town's coffers last fiscal year. But a dramatic drop in the commodities markets has the resale value of recyclables at unprecedented lows, and Martin is holding the material until the market rebounds.

Wellesley is storing nine truckloads, or 216 tons, of cardboard. Martin held onto the cardboard for months as he watched prices go steadily down. Then in October, the bottom fell out. He said what would have sold for $19,440 in October was worth only $2,160 last month, a drop of approximately 89 percent.

"We all knew that recycling markets were going to get a hit," he said. "What was surprising was how drastic it was in a 30-day period."

The impact is being felt throughout the country, as some communities are asking residents to store their recyclables and others are suspending their programs because it is cheaper to dump than recycle. The national average price for mixed paper dropped from $103 per ton in July to $5.63 per ton Oct. 31, while low-grade newspaper plummeted from $115 to $6.25 per ton for the same time period, according to SecondaryFiberPricing.com.

The ongoing plunge "has been significant," said Greg Cooper, director of consumer programs for the state Department of Environmental Protection. "These are kind of new waters."

Amid the current economic recession, there is less demand for products that are made from recyclables, which in turn has led to the drop in price for the recyclable products collected from consumers, Cooper said.

"The materials that everyone recycles at the curb each day are basically turned into commodities," he said. "With the slowdown in the economy, there is a slowdown in consumption, whether it's a bale of newspaper or a barrel of oil."

Even with a drop in revenue, municipalities should still have incentives to recycle because every ton of material that does not enter the garbage stream saves the town a disposal fee, Cooper said. And, he noted that the commodities market fluctuates so it is likely prices will rebound eventually.

Massachusetts has a waste ban that restricts paper, plastic, glass, and other recyclables from being disposed of in a landfill, transfer station, or incinerator.

Martin said Wellesley's facility, which relies on residents to sort their recyclables, still has enough space but that situation could change if the markets remain down.

"There's only so much we can store," he said, noting he will not sell recyclables at a loss. "It's my hope that when the market rebounds we have the ability to sell everything we put in storage and obviously make a lot more money when that sale is made."

But, the short-term impact on Wellesley is more than decreased storage space. For this fiscal year, the projected revenue from recycling was $801,000, a figure Martin does not expect to reach unless the markets improve. Sheryl Strother, Wellesley's finance director, downplayed the impact that decreased revenue from recycling would have on the town's $100 million budget.

"To the extent that the revenues are down, we are going to have to make them up either in another area or by cutting budgets," she said, while noting that "in terms of the general scheme of things, recycling is important but it is not our primary source of revenue."

In Needham, Charles Laffey, the recycling superintendent, said the town does not use recycling revenues in its overall budget, so the ups and downs of the commodities market are not an issue for town finances.

"It's like betting on the stock market, and you don't know what it will do from one day to the next," Laffey said. "If you don't get out on that limb, you can't fall off it."

Nevertheless, recycling revenues provide important supplementary funds used to purchase new equipment and improve recycling and trash services for residents, he said.

The town bought two new pieces of equipment last year and hopes to acquire a front-end loader and material screener next year. The screener would be used to process dirt and gravel from town public works projects, turning the material into fill and crushed stone to be used in future town projects.

"This will slow down our equipment replacement program but it won't kill it," Laffey said.

Needham has raised its rates for access to the recycling and transfer station by $10, to $60 per year, although that was the result of overall revenue projections and not the commodities market, he said.

Meanwhile, a host of other area communities, including Ashland, Franklin, and Framingham, rely on fixed contracts with private companies that do not fluctuate with the commodities market, their officials said.

"We do have a small transfer station, and [revenue there has] gone down, but out of a $3 million budget, the impact is marginal," said Brutus Cantoreggi, Franklin's director of public works.

In Framingham, recycling revenues are down by roughly 30 to 50 percent at its recycling center, but curbside costs are unchanged because of the fixed contract, said Mike Lavin, the town's operations manager for solid waste.

Despite the revenue shortfalls, the town is not losing money on recycling, so officials are not considering increasing fees on pickup or for use of the transfer station, Lavin said.

"Really the only place we were making money from is our recycling center, and as long as we're able to provide that service and provide it well we are achieving our goals," he said.