2007 Municipal Recycling Supplement - Into The Blue

The city of El Paso, Texas, established its current curbside recycling program after a successful pilot project that ran from January 2005 to July 2005. The pilot saw a 50 percent participation rate from citizens and realized a 15 percent diversion rate. Through this program, an average of 29.1 tons of aluminum, newspaper, OCC and plastics were collected weekly, of which recyclables averaged 24 tons and residuals averaged 5.2 tons, yielding an 18 percent contamination rate.

Prior to the curbside recycling program, the city of El Paso collected recyclable materials at six citizen collection sites (CCS) with a participation rate of only about 2 percent.

Curbside recycling collection is provided once per week on the same day as regular refuse collection. Nearly 80 city owned and operated automatic side loaders service both recycling and refuse collection within the city limits. The Department of Environmental Services, led by Director Ellen Smyth, P.E., manages collection of trash and recycling, landfill operations, code enforcement and engineering/monitoring functions.

Using the data from the pilot project in 2005, the city contracted the services of R. W. Beck Inc., based in Seattle, to help develop an invitation to bid for single-stream curbside recycling collection and processing services. R.W. Beck had also recently written (2004) a financial and operational study for the entire department, and the continuity from one to the other was a logical extension.

While there was discussion regarding a single-stream versus a dual-stream program, the city believed the lower operating costs and simplicity of the program made the single-bin decision simple.

"One advantage of waiting so long to begin citywide recycling collection was that the city benefited from the recommendations of R. W. Beck’s report and use of the best technology available," Smyth says.

The new technology Smyth mentions concerns the processing equipment. A new facility needed to be built to handle the sorting, and it was built using new sorting technology.

Scott Pasternak, senior director with R.W. Beck, says, "We were looking for a long and successful partnership between the city and the successful bidder for processing services."

The 15-year contract the city sought stabilized the capital risk for both parties and engaged them to invest in education and to share in materials marketing.

Ultimately, Friedman Recycling Co. was selected as the processor. This would be the company’s third MRF and its first outside of its home state of Arizona.

Morris Friedman, Friedman Recycling, says the long-term contract allows the company to make a more sizable investment in the facility.

El Paso residents use 96-gallon bins from Toter Inc., based in North Carolina. Toter delivered the bins prior to the start of the program.

Residents currently collect paper (office, newspaper, junk mail), plastics (No. 1 and No. 2), cardboard, phonebooks, aluminum, steel and bi-metal cans. No glass is collected at the curbside.

Of the materials being delivered by the city, Friedman says, "We’re ecstatic! The quantity and quality is far above our expectations."

Katherine Palafox, executive director of nonprofit Keep El Paso Beautiful, has been touting the benefits of the new program from day one. "You have to continually educate people on the merits of the program, especially to people doing it for the first time," Palafox says.

City personnel together with Keep El Paso Beautiful have conducted more than 200 recycling informational presentations to neighborhood associations and organizations in the community.

AGI Marketing Solutions of El Paso was awarded the city contract to advertise and market the recycling program. AGI provided copywriting, media buying, research, art preparation, broadcast creative supervision and general account supervision.

"The goal of this new campaign is to educate, remind and encourage residents in the ongoing usage of the program," Jim Singelyn, president of AGI, says.

To that end, the agency developed a campaign slogan, the tagline for recycling in El Paso, "Drop it in the Blue!"

Blue, of course, is the color of El Paso’s recycling bin. An entire campaign, including television, radio and newspaper spots revolve around the "Drop it in the Blue!" slogan, reinforced by a local comedian, Jorge Jimenez. Through AGI, the city developed four successful television spots, one cinema spot and one "Recycling 101" Web video to educate the public about the new curbside recycling program. Promotional recycling bins were also placed in malls, theaters, government buildings and shopping centers with messages encouraging program participation. The city also sponsored billboards and signs on city vehicles.

To date, the city of El Paso has increased its recycling rate from an average of 625 tons per month to 3,750 tons per month. Approximately 15,000 tons of recyclables were collected between the four months of May and August 2007, which is an increase over the 5,000 tons collected prior to the program between the eight months of September 2006 through April 2007. This amount represents an approximate 5 percent diversion rate during the city’s 2007 fiscal year. The city’s goal is to increase diversion to 10 percent during fiscal year 2008. Current projections for fiscal year 2007 are 40,000 tons.

The city of El Paso, in conjunction with Friedman Recycling Co., is continuously looking for new markets for recyclable materials with a goal of increasing the types of recyclable materials collected through the program. The program also recently expanded to include local area school districts and all city-owned buildings and properties.

The annual budget for the city of El Paso’s curbside collection program is approximately $4.4 million in fiscal year 2008. The city’s share of the projected annual revenue is estimated to be approximately $1 million, and the projected savings in landfill space is estimated to be $1.2 million (45,000 tons at $26 per ton).

Although the program is not expected to result in a net profit its first year, the goal is to develop a self-sustaining and profitable program by continuing to expand markets, increase the number of customers and increase the percent of material that is being recycled. The city also plans to increase collection efficiency and lower the overall operational costs through computer-aided route optimization and is exploring decreasing the collection frequency from every week to every other week.

Ultimately, the program’s success is shared by many, from city leaders to city departments to contracted partners to city residents, who delivered big. El Paso is making its "green" mark in the "blue" world of recycling.