Recyclables plummet in value, Linn jurisdictions asked to share cost

CEDAR RAPIDS - Demand for recyclables has collapsed, and the fee to separate and process them has jumped to the point where the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency alone can't pay the local program cost.

As a result, the agency's board on Tuesday approved a plan to assess jurisdictions in Linn County up to $378,200 to be split by population - $1.79 per resident - to cover some of the costs to recycle in the fiscal year beginning next July 1.

The agency has been covering the recycling costs from revenue generated by the fee of $38 a ton charged for dumping garbage at the landfill.

The agency will continue to subsidize a $427,800 share of the recycling cost, but the board agreed with Executive Director Karmin McShane, who said raising the garbage tipping fee to cover the additional costs for recycling could prompt haulers to take more garbage to private landfills in Illinois. Losing garbage to Illinois, she said, would mean a loss of local landfill revenue.

Ralph Russell, agency board chairman and a Cedar Rapids City Council member, said the best solution was to ask member communities to share the cost.

McShane told the board two forces are at work:

' The value of recyclables has 'collapsed” and so recyclables bring little or no revenue to the multi-jurisdictional agency.

' Republic Services, the agency's processor of recyclables, raised its processing fee from $34.50 to $65 a ton. Republic, which purchased Iowa City-based City Carton Recycling this year, submitted the only bid to the agency on a new contract, she said.

McShane's budget proposal calls for the agency to continue to cover the recycling processing fee at the $34.50 a ton rate, but to have member jurisdictions assume the additional $378,200 cost. The cities can pay the through the agency or directly to the recycling processor, McShane said.

For Cedar Rapids, the cost will be $226,186 for the next budget year.

Steve Hershner, an agency board member and the Cedar Rapids utilities director, said he will seek to find the revenue in the next city budget, but it could mean an increase in the city's utility fee for solid waste and recycling.

The change in the recycling market also will give the city a chance to discuss if it wants to make changes to its curbside recycling program, Hershner said. The city has 'passionate” recyclers who will want to keep the program, he said.

Mark Jones, an agency board member and the Cedar Rapids solid waste manager, wondered if some smaller communities in Linn County will simply decide to toss recyclables into the garbage rather than paying a new fee. However, the material then would be billed at $38 a ton in garbage tipping fees rather than $30.50 a ton, the proposed local share of the total recycling processing expense of $65 a ton, McShane said.

McShane said it is now cheaper to make a plastic water bottle from new material than from recyclable material. It takes 36 recycled plastic water bottles to make a new one because today's bottles are so light. In the past, 20 recycled plastics bottles were needed for a new plastic bottle, she said.

Leslie Irlbeck, program and outreach manager at Metro Waste Authority in Des Moines, said Tuesday processing fees for recyclables handled there also have increased, but by 13 percent, compared with 47 percent in Linn County.