Over and Beyond

With curbside programs well established throughout North America, states and municipalities that are supportive of recycling have begun to move their programs beyond the cans, bottles, plastic containers and newspapers traditionally collected.

The City of Ann Arbor, Mich., for example, has had an ongoing commitment to increasing recovery of materials from its waste stream. In its most recent Solid Waste Management Plan, Tom McMurtrie of Ann Arbor’s Systems Planning Unit-Public Services, says the city has committed to increasing its residential landfill diversion rate from 50 percent to 60 percent.

"There are two ways to do this," he says. "One is to get more people to increase recycling of materials currently offered. The second is to identify additional materials in the waste stream that could be recovered and broaden the program to include those."

SPREADING THE NEWS. Ann Arbor, McMurtrie points out, has chosen to both increase participation and to add materials to its program. The city is providing extensive promotional efforts to encourage as many people to recycle as possible and is broadening the number of materials offered.

Some of the items currently permitted for curbside recycling include juice boxes, small scrap metal, used motor oil and oil filters, paperbacks, phone books, ceramic dishes/mugs and aerosol cans.

In addition, residents can recycle some specialty materials at a drop-off station. These include polystyrene, plastic bags, egg cartons, textiles, car tires, car batteries, automotive fluids and hardcover books.

Recycle Ann Arbor, the non-profit agency that coordinates recycling in the city (see "Tried & True," Recycling Today, March 2004 Municipal Recycling Supplement, p. S17), has been aggressively pursuing material reuse through its Reuse Center. These include a variety of items, such as furniture, household fixtures, sports equipment, lumber and other materials.

In some places, such as Ontario and California, the move to expand the recycling stream is being driven by state or provincial government regulations. Joel Corona, recycling market area manager in California for the Recycle America Alliance subsidiary of Waste Management Inc., Houston, notes, for example, that state law prohibits the dumping of tires and strongly discourages disposing of electronic equipment in landfills.

In Ontario, the Waste Diversion Act, which was passed by the government of the day in June, 2002, requires a waste diversion program for organic waste and used tires as well as other non-traditional items such as oil, pharmaceuticals, electronics, batteries and fluorescent lighting tubes.

How municipalities in Ontario are to go about collecting these other potential recyclables is still being determined to a large degree.

Recycling goals that may be either self-imposed or state-mandated often drive recycling program managers to look for new materials for recovery, says the city of Palm Beach (Fla.) Solid Waste Authority’s Patrick Carroll. Public demand also sometimes drives the recovery of certain materials, he adds.

Joel Corona, notes, for example, the State of California prohibits the dumping of tires and CRT devices (TVs and monitors), and strongly discourages disposing of other electronic equipment and construction and demolition material in landfills. Many communities include curbside collection of used motor oil and drop-off sites for household hazardous wastes. Processors, collectors and local governments have developed programs that provide incentives that encourage recycling rather than disposing. The City of San Jose and Alameda County have been very progressive, Corona says.

HANDLING WITH CARE. Waste Management/Recycle America Alliance has invested greatly in West Coast material processing operations to reduce the amount of material that is disposed of in landfills, according to the company.

These operations include conventional material processing and post-processing operations that provide advanced optical sorting for mixed glass, plastic and electronic product recycling through the CRA (Container Recycling Alliance glass recycling operations), PREI (plastic container recycling) and e-cycling subsidiaries. Greater investment is planned for expanded residential, commercial, construction and organic recycling, Corona says.

"These services help our customers gain and maintain compliance of the diversion mandates prescribed by state law," Corona adds.

In jurisdictions where senior government is not forcing the issue, some individual municipalities, like Ann Arbor, are expanding recycling programs on their own initiative. "In addition to simply wanting to reduce the waste stream as much as practical, many municipalities, such as ours, have set specific waste reduction goals," says Van Vliet, solid waste management engineer for the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. "Enhancing or broadening programs, when practical and sustainable, works towards achieving the goals."

"In our case, we made the decision to put together an integrated solid waste system," says Eric Hofmeister, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Control for the community of Islip (population 310,000), a suburb of New York City. "We are always looking for more ways to cut the waste stream and recycle and reuse products."

Carroll reports that his organization is always looking for opportunities to economically recover additional material from the waste stream. "We have been collecting C&D, tires and paint for many years and more recently have begun collecting electronics," he says.

The Palm Beach SWA has two recycling facilities, one known as the R-MRF that handles all residentially generated materials (i.e.: bottles, cans, newspaper etc), and another that handles commercially generated material (i.e.: corrugated cardboard and office paper).

Several other materials are not handled at these facilities. C&D and tire recycling areas on the landfill site have been dedicated to recovering and processing those materials. Other items, such as electronics and paints, are handled as part of the household hazardous waste program or through special drop-off collection events.

E-scrap is still in its infancy in terms of market development, says Corona. Some municipalities are encouraging e-scrap recycling through events such as recycling days. The city of Calgary in the western Canadian province of Alberta has decided to try this approach, most recently in May of 2003.

"We had a second electronic recycling day this past May," says Mike Saley, the city of Calgary’s manager of strategic planning and diversion. He notes that the province of Alberta has recently announced a new electronic stewardship program that will have a major impact on how electronic scrap is handled in the province.

The city of Calgary recently banned electronic scrap from city-operated refuse collection programs. In conjunction with that local ban, the city began operating a fee-based curbside collection of electronic scrap.

Carroll notes that several states are contemplating a similar ban on electronics, while a few already have. This is creating a need to expand the electronics recycling infrastructure.

PROFIT AND LOSS. Whether municipal recycling programs operate at a loss can depend on whether the costs of not recycling are also calculated. Without question, though, the low commodity prices from earlier this decade did not help the situation any, while the higher prices being paid now are helping.

"While market prices have risen," says Corona, "costs for curbside and commercial municipal collection and processing programs generally exceed material sales revenues. Therefore, they require rate support by the customers."

Corona reports that in California there is a robust market for most traditional recycling commodities and growing markets for new recyclable materials. "Market prices have been improving," Corona says, "but history shows prices can fall. We seek the greatest efficiency from our collection and processing operations to expand the volume and types of materials we recover and provide our customers the greatest value. Demolition debris can be separated into its constituent wood, metals and [aggregates] for resale."

Saley points out that Calgary’s recycling programs have been developed with an eye on market demand. "From day one, our rule of thumb is that we don’t collect any material unless we have a stable market for the product," he states.

Most electronics, Carroll says, contain precious metals that can offset the cost of processing the less valuable components. Recycled paint is sold to the public at cost. "Many other innovative ways can be used to offset costs of recycling materials," Carroll says.

"In Vancouver," says Van Vliet, "we receive significant net revenue (est. $1.7 million per year) on the processing and marketing of our materials. ONP is the largest contributor to our revenue stream."

Ann Arbor is not currently handling any recyclable materials at a loss. In the past, says McMurtrie, the city did encounter problems marketing green and brown glass. This material was handled at a loss because it had to be shipped significant distances to be marketed. In a change in tactics, glass collected through Ann Arbor’s program is now shipped to a local landfill for daily cover and other on-site uses. The landfill pays Ann Arbor for the material.

As for who collects municipal recyclables, that continues to vary according to the municipality. The city of Vancouver, for example, only uses private sector processing and marketing contractors (MRF operators) to handle its materials. The city acts as a collection agency, through the use of its own personnel as well as contract haulers, and also collects material at a drop-off depot.

"Since we tender for P&M (processing and marketing) every few years, we always allow bidders to add materials to our required processing list and evaluate both the price and how sustainable recycling that material category might be," says Van Vliet. "In our last P&M tender for blue box materials (29,000 metric tons per year), we asked bidders to price #4 and #5 plastic containers in addition to the required price for accepting #1 and #2."

In Calgary, curbside pick-up service is contracted out to private haulers. "It’s a public-private partnership," says Saley. "We operate 48 drop-off depots throughout the city. The products the public brings in we send directly to market."

"In Palm Beach County, most of the material is handled at one of our facilities," says Carroll. "SWA has also permitted several private sector facilities throughout the county to handle C&D materials and some yard waste materials."

The city of Ann Arbor owns a MRF/transfer station that was designed, built and is now operated by FCR, a private sector operator. The city chose early in the process to identify the additional materials needed to be recycled and included those in the process, says McMurtrie. The city provided financing as part of the package because it had access to lower financing costs. The arrangement included a 20-year operating agreement.

"Ann Arbor chose this ‘turnkey’ package," McMurtrie says, "because it could offer the city the best financial and operational arrangement."