Philadelphia's recycling program no longer a cash cow
Monday, November 16th, 2009
By: Susan Phillips
sphillips@whyy.org
Curbside residential recycling in Philadelphia is up about 50% from a year ago. But the increase in recycling comes at a time when prices for recycled material have plunged.
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After the recession hit, the city went from making millions of dollars off their recyclables, to paying to have them hauled away. In 2008, the city earned about $2 million re-selling used glass, paper and plastic. In 2009, that net gain dropped to just $100,000 dollars.
Mark Mehall is the Director of the Professional Recyclers of Pennsylvania. Mehall says between 2006 and 2008, recyclers did well selling their material to industrializing nations like China and India.
Mehall: The market demand, especially in China, India and other foreign markets was such that it was really spurring large scale municipal recycling programs such as Philadelphia. The market downturn has really affected the efforts to build on those programs.
Mehall says recycling is a boom and bust industry, and right now, he says glass is worthless, and other recyclables are nearly worthless. But he sees the market starting to rebound.
I find this story disturbing not so much for what says than what it implies. The author’s contention that a recycling is a “cash cow” and Mehall’s description of recycling markets as a “boon and bust industry” is misleading if not just plain wrong.
While there is reason to praise its recent achievements, Philadelphia’s recycling program has never been a “cash cow”. An evaluation of the full cost of this or any municipal program will reveal the income earned from the sales of recyclables has never covered the cost to provide the service. Municipalities are not businesses; recycling collection, like trash collection, police protection or road repair are public services funded by our tax dollars. The objective of municipal officials is to provide the highest quality public service to its residence at the lowest feasible cost.
As long as there is a market that will accept recycled materials at a priced lower than trash, there is a benefit to a well managed recycling program. What is not said in story is that while material collected as trash costs the Philadelphia tax payer an average of $65.50 a ton, material collected for recycling has a processing fee of $.30 a ton. As long as all collection costs are equal, Philadelphia saves a whopping $65.20 for every ton diverted from the trash truck*.
Respectfully, I also disagree with my colleague Mark Mehall characterization of recycling as a “boom and bust” industry. While its true the commodity value of collected materials mirrors the condition of the economy, the industry is in fact growing. The level material recovery has never been higher, and is expected to increase, while ironically, the level of waste delivered to the regions landfills and incinerators has been decreasing for the last three years.
Locally, in the last 18 months, Republic Services of Pennsylvania has upgraded its material recovery facility (MRF) in King of Prussia (“The Recyclery”) to accept 1-7 plastic bottles and Casella Waste Systems, FCR/Blue Mountain Recycling MRF in Philadelphia anticipates receiving 235,000 ton in 2009. Casella has also announced a $3 million dollar investment to upgrade its processing capacity from 15 tons an hour to 35 tons per hour. The two facilities account for more than 200 green jobs, 144 since the year 2000.
Far from the gloomy perspective offered by WHYY, recycling may well a harbinger of the emerging green economy. I encourage you to explore and report on that possibility.
*Sources: The City of Philadelphia Streets Department 2005, Bob Anderson Business Manager, FCR/Blue Mountain Recycling November 2009