Creating Jobs

You’ve likely heard the statistics about recycling and job creation: Per ton, sorting and processing recyclables sustains 10 times the number of jobs than landfilling or incineration, according to the Institute for Local Self Reliance. According to the nonprofit, the biggest economic benefit is realized when recyclables are turned into new products, as these operations employ more people at higher wages than companies that sort recyclables do. “Some recycling-based paper mills and plastic product manufacturers, for instance, employ on a per-ton basis 60 times more workers than do landfills,” the Institute for Self Reliance says.

The North Carolina Recycling Business Assistance Center (RBAC) recently released the results of a study that further illustrates the economic benefits of recycling. The study was conducted from April 2010 through November 2010 and was a follow-up to earlier studies conducted in 1994, 2000, 2004 and 2008.

Despite the recession, private sector recycling jobs in North Carolina have increased by 4.8 percent since 2008, and 48 percent of recycling businesses surveyed anticipate creating more jobs in the next two years, the RBAC reports. That works out to nearly 400 new jobs in the next two years. The number of people employed by private-sector recyclers in the state has increased steadily since RBAC began its study in 1994, when the number stood at nearly 7,800. By 2010, the number of people employed in recycling had nearly doubled to 15,200.  

While the study did not provide details on average yearly pay for employees of recycling companies, private-sector recyclers in North Carolina report a total annual payroll of $395 million.

“The study only included direct economic impacts and excluded indirect or induced measures,” according to the executive summary of the report, titled “Employment Trends in North Carolina’s Recycling Industry – 2010.”

No one commodity dominates among North Carolina recyclers, according to the study, with respondents targeting everything from aluminum cans to plastics to recovered fiber to electronics to C&D materials to woody and organic materials.

“North Carolina recycling businesses are strong, diverse and use a large variety of recyclable or discarded materials that become feedstock for a wide variety of products,” the RBAC concludes.

The same likely could be said for the recycling industry in other states. Yet some governors, such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, are targeting cuts to recycling programs that help bring in the material these private companies rely on. With the buzz about the need for job creation, recyclers appear to have an important story to tell.  

DeAnne Toto