How can municipalities and businesses benefit by recycling

We also work with local municipalities and other organizations to encourage proper regulation of recycling bins. We do this as a public service and at no cost to other businesses or municipalities. Read about how you can join us and become a Planet Aid site host. Also see our Government Resources page to find out more about what municipalities can do to improve textile recycling. The good news is that a number of municipalities are banning these products, sending an important message to industry that taxpayers will not subsidize the cost of sending products that are not recyclable to landfill.

Additional good news is that beverage containers, clear plastics containers, carboard and aluminum cans are currently very profitable to recycle. Furthermore, we are seeing the development and introduction of robotics and artificial intelligence technologies that will improve the sortation and recovery of these high value items. Lastly, a note on how China, which has received much press as of late for their role in the American recycling ecosystem, impacts the industry.

For much of the past 20 years, the US recycling industry was dependent on China as the leading export market. As consumption and waste has increased in China, the Chinese government has decided to develop their own domestic recycling infrastructure. Leading municipalities, recyclers, manufactures and brands are starting to partner together to establish, and profit from, a circular economy in the United States where goods are continually manufactured using recycled material from local recycling programs.

This partnership in developing a circular economy will result in one of the largest investment opportunities in the United States over the next decade. This article originally appeared on Medium and was republished with permission from the author.

Recent Articles. User Name : User Email : Password :. In , the Recycling Economic Information REI Study, an unprecedented national study that demonstrated the importance of recycling and reuse to the U.

According to the REI study, the U. The study clearly shows that recycling is profitable for local governments and businesses alike. According to the REI Study, "[E]specially significant is the finding that recycling far outpaces the waste management industry because recycling adds value to materials, contributing to a growing labor force. Recycling also provides a large number of jobs that generally pay above the average national wage.

Recycling jobs stack up against other major industries. The demand for recyclable materials moves beyond the basic reuse of resources. To a community, it can boil down to a central need—jobs. The South Carolina report points out that these recycling jobs pay above the state average. And with an estimated 12 percent growth over the next five years, the number of these good South Carolina jobs is expected to grow.

In terms of employment and wages, the recycling and reuse industry compares very well to industries often targeted for recruitment and support by economic developers. Often times, the needs of the recycling industry are simple—specifically, they desire access to materials that are currently disposed. At full capacity, the facility is expected to produce approximately million pounds of food-grade recycled PET annually.

This production rate will help Coca-Cola meet their goal to recycle or reuse all the plastic bottles used in the U. While the primary beverage container materials i. The plant will also be adding a significant number of jobs to the area.

Recycling spurs downstream job and economic growth. The recycling industry is an elaborate and diverse network of public sector institutions and private companies.

Investments in local recycling and processing, as well as policies and programs that encourage recycling and reuse, spur significant downstream investment in recycling manufacturing by the private sector.

All of these actions promote economic growth. The REI study indicates that beyond the 1. That is a total of 2. Gauging economic impact on a national level. It is clear from the REI study that recycling and reuse industries are a significant force in the U. The REI numbers show that the U. The table above shows the direct impact of recycling and reuse industries on the U. With recyclable material recovery facilities in six of the eight Region 4 states, SP Newsprint Company is a supporter of recycling and an example of strong manufacturing in the Southeast.

Their Web site boasts that each year their manufacturing operations recycle over one million tons of old newspapers to produce newsprint used at many of the major newspaper publishers in the U. However, the Southeast domestic demand for old newsprint exceeds the available supply. If SP Newsprint recovered all the used newspapers and publishers production scrap in Georgia, they would still have to purchase quality tonnage from other Southeast market areas and beyond to meet their production needs.

Rural communities often have a more difficult time collecting the volume of recyclables needed for program viability. RMCT is a statewide recycling cooperative that provides assistance to communities of less than 10, people. In addition to providing program development, grant writing, and outreach assistance, RMCT provides full-scale marketing development and facilitates the combination of materials from smaller communities for increased revenue potential.

The Atlantic reported that the small town of Franklin, New Hampshire population 7, , halted the collection of recyclables after the market change. Nevertheless, the dramatic change in the economics of recycling has not led to a change in practice in big cities with larger budgets—although it has led to a significant change in their costs.

What follows is an analysis of the financial implications of ongoing recycling in five large and distinct jurisdictions. They include municipalities that use public employees and others that contract private firms to do so. Collection includes paper, cardboard, metals, glass, plastics, and cartons. The situation is less positive for other recyclables. The economics are stark.

Boston then pays a private firm, Casella Waste Systems, to sort and sell the materials when there is a buyer, or otherwise dispose of them. Westchester County population , is a suburban area north of New York City. It consists of 43 separate municipalities, including those with city forms of government, such as White Plains, New Rochelle, and Mount Vernon, and smaller towns and villages, including Scarsdale, one of the wealthiest communities in the United States.

All the municipalities also support and receive certain services from the county, a distinct unit of government that is overseen by an elected chief executive and legislature. Those services include the handling of recyclables. These figures are deceptive because, unlike New York City or Boston, Westchester County does not collect recyclable materials at the household level. And the costs of collection at the local level are substantial. Sanitation department costs are among the largest budget items for most of these local governments.

These jurisdictions do not specify, in their published budgets, the specific collection cost for recyclables. With a population 1. Reprocessors in China were rejecting much of the materials they received, instead simply dumping it in settings far less sanitary and environmentally safe than contemporary U. The Big D has what appears to be the financially best recycling arrangement in the United States. That facility operates under a contract that gives Dallas an unlimited right to send recyclables to it without charge—and revenue earned by the contractor the Madrid-based FCC Environmental Services is to be shared with the city.

It also runs the city-owned McCommas Bluff Landfill. This landfill has operating costs but also generates revenue through tipping fees charged to commercial operators and other municipalities. However, the city realizes virtually no recyclable sales revenue to help reduce the cost to residential households, as first envisioned when recycling began to be widely adopted.

In doing so, Dallas transferred market risk to a private firm and insulated itself from the market problems that developed. This is not an option that other cities could likely pursue successfully today. The Dallas deal allows the city to fulfill the contract simply through the collection of recyclables; cities such as New York today must pay reprocessors to accept the materials at all.

In , when Dallas issued its RFP for a recycling process center, a good case could be made for the investment.