RecyclingMonster - Lisa Goldy did her part for the environment Monday, pulling together every bit of paper, plastic and aluminum she could find around her Ironwood Drive home so the Southern Recycling truck could take it away.
“I even told my daughter to get anything out of her room that could be recycled,” Goldy said.
The weekly curbside recycling day is always big for the Goldy household, but Monday was bigger than normal. Faced with mounting losses as markets for recyclables have dried up, Southern Recycling was making its last pickups before ending its curbside program Tuesday, and no alternative for curbside pickup is in sight.
The decision has seemed inevitable since 2018, when China stopped accepting plastics and other recyclables, eliminating about half the market for those items and shredding the recycling business model.
“Recycling markets worldwide have been in the dumper,” Warren County Environmental Planning and Assistance Coordinator Stan Reagan said in December when the decision was made to end curbside recycling. “There’s a glut of plastics, and paper and glass aren’t worth anything. Even tin cans and aluminum are hard to get rid of.”
Those market realities don’t make the loss of the curbside program any easier to accept for environmental zealots like Goldy.
“We always have more recycling than garbage,” Goldy said. “It has been a phenomenal program, and it’s incredible how much they’ve been able to take. It was so easy.”
Most Warren County households pay $2.65 a month for the curbside program. A sustainable curbside recycling program would have to cost much more per household under current market conditions.
Reagan estimated Southern Recycling was losing $30,000 or more a month on its curbside program. In a letter to its customers announcing the end of the curbside program, the company acknowledged the financial realities.
“Over the years, the value of the commodities picked up has gone up and down,” the letter said. “Unfortunately, negative values, added costs and difficulty disposing of these materials has reached unsustainable levels.”
Southern Recycling, a Houchens Industries subsidiary that has offered curbside recycling in Warren County since 1995, will complete its contract by accepting recyclables at its location at 63 N. Graham St. through July 31.
Rob Rutherford, Southern Recycling’s president, said he has received “very little feedback” from county residents about discontinuing the curbside program.
But those aluminum cans, cardboard boxes and plastic bottles that have been going in those red Southern Recycling bins can’t just be headed for a landfill if another vendor can’t be found. According to the county’s Environmental Planning and Assistance website, Kentucky counties are still operating under a 1990 state mandate that a minimum of 25 percent of all waste be diverted from landfills.
To meet that mandate, Warren Fiscal Court has given approval for Reagan to advertise for proposals for recycling and waste disposal, but the state of emergency brought about by the global coronavirus pandemic has delayed that action.
Reagan said the county will request proposals for solid waste and recycling, and he said those proposals can be made together or individually. The deadline to have new franchisees in place is Aug. 1, but Reagan said that doesn’t mean a new recycling franchisee will begin operating that day.
The proposals will be reviewed by county staff and members of the fiscal court’s solid waste working group and ultimately voted on by fiscal court.
Sixth District Magistrate Ron Cummings, a member of the solid waste working group, said: “There are really no good options for us right now. It may be six months to a year, but we’re going to re-implement recycling as soon as we can.”
Reagan pointed out that other counties have recycling pickups less frequently than weekly and that some operate in conjunction with solid waste disposal vendors.
“At least two of our existing (solid waste) franchisees offer single-stream recycling either in neighboring communities or in their other markets,” Reagan said in an email. “It’s conceivable that they could offer such programs here.”
Given the current market for recyclables, Reagan doesn’t expect an easy solution to the curbside conundrum.
“Collection is the simplest part of recycling,” he said. “If that were the only issue, Southern Recycling would continue doing what they’re doing.”