Hot Topics in Texas

Attendees of the National Recycling Coalition Annual Congress in Austin had plenty to talk about.

For the 21st straight year, recyclers from throughout the U.S. gathered for the
Annual Congress of the National Recycling Coalition (NRC). Some 1,000 members of the Washington-based group and its state affiliate organizations met in Austin, Texas, Sept. 8-11.

In addition to sitting in on NRC committee, board and council meetings, attendees were able to browse an exhibit hall featuring more than 100 exhibitors and choose from a schedule of 37 educational sessions on a variety of topics. The organization also elected new members to its board of directors.

The educational sessions were spread out over three days and divided into eight tracks, focusing on topics ranging from "Growing Supply" to "Sharing Responsibility for End-of-Life Management."

In a recycling market update presented for attendees, several trade association representatives discussed the pricing and demand for different recyclable commodities.

Brenda Pulley of Alcan Aluminum Corp., Cleveland, noted that the U.S. aluminum industry is still hungry for used beverage cans (UBCs), even if the price doesn’t necessarily reflect it.

Low UBC pricing at scale houses is just one reason why the U.S. is suffering from a declining UBC recycling rate. The U.S. is going from a world leader in UBC recycling to an also-ran. The U.S. 2001 55.4 percent UBC recycling rate places it well behind neighboring Canada (70 percent) and distantly trailing Brazil with its 85 percent rate.

Pulley mentioned a decrease of recycling awareness, the lower aluminum prices of the past 18 months and the increased consumption of beverages away from home (and thus away from recycling bins, in many cases) as potential reasons for the decline.

In terms of financial incentives, current aluminum pricing is not likely to attract peddlers back into the fold. "Aluminum is currently at fairly low pricing. We have not only global economic conditions [reducing demand], but global overcapacity," Pulley told attendees. "Supply keeps coming back online, outpacing demand." At the time, aluminum was priced at around $1,300 per ton on the LME.

Bill Heenan of the Steel Recycling Institute (SRI), Pittsburgh, noted that prices recyclers have been receiving for steel food cans have crept back up after dwelling at the lower end of their price range for about two years. SRI statistics show that 58 percent of steel food cans in the U.S. were recycled in 2001.

Representing the paper industry, Michael Sullivan, a general manager with Abitibi-Consolidated Inc., Houston, said residential recycling program managers can increase their haul by taking old magazines (OMG) along with the old newspapers (ONP) they’re already collecting.

With the ONP recycling rate in the U.S. having zoomed from 30 percent in 1990 to 65 percent in 2001, recyclers and mill buyers are looking for additional furnish. Sullivan says the feedback from most mills is positive toward including OMG. "They like it," he remarked.

Joe Cattaneo of the Glass Packaging Institute, Washington, remarked that glass cullet remains a desirable commodity in some regions, but acknowledged that a lack of nearby end markets in other regions has become a barrier in sparsely populated areas such as the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains states.

On the plastics side, Robin Cotchan of American Post-Consumer Plastic Recyclers (APR), Arlington, Va., said, "My members are telling me their markets for [recycled plastic] material are very strong."

She noted that bottle-to-bottle recycling technology "is coming to America, and they’re looking for feedstock."

On a more discouraging note was New York City’s recent decision to drop plastic containers from its recycling programs. Concerning curbside recycling overall, however, Heenan sounded a more optimistic note.

"The U.S. added a net 55 curbside programs last year," he remarked. "More people recycle than vote, so I guess recycling is more popular than democracy."

New York City is a high-profile example of cities that have been cutting materials from their recycling programs in an effort to balance their budgets. To many, it seems as if recycling has been targeted for trimming, but some cities have found ways to raise recycling’s profile and the community’s awareness.

"Without a doubt, recycling is under attack at the national level today," Jonathan Burgel of R.W. Beck, Cincinnati, Ohio, told NRC session attendees. Burgel was among the speakers assembled to discuss the threats to municipal recycling programs around the country and to offer solutions.

The recycling program in Cincinnati had too few spare trucks, poor model selection, and non-enforcement of pre- and post-trip inspection, according to R.W. Beck’s Darrel Pullard. The city also lacked a partnership attitude between the maintenance staff and the drivers, he said. Changes R. W. Beck proposed could save Cincinnati 30 percent in fleet management costs, Pullard noted.