RecyclingMonster - The city’s recycling program is shut down indefinitely, although Mayor Frank Jackson’s administration would like residents to keep separating recyclables out of their garbage.

Jackson’s chief of operations, Darnell Brown, told a City Council committee Tuesday that the program ceased in April, without announcement, when the city’s contract with a recycling company expired.

Until the program can be restarted, all the city’s refuse will be sent to landfills.

Brown, appearing remotely at a meeting of council’s Development, Planning and Sustainability Committee, acknowledged that could take months, particularly if the coronavirus crisis continues.

Cleveland twice sought bids on a new contract, Brown said. The first time no bids were received. The second time, the city received one bid.

That bid, though, would have increased the cost by $6 million a year – equal to about one-fifth of the entire budget for Cleveland’s trash pickup operation.

In the meantime, the city will work with a consultant to evaluate the best way to restart its recycling program and to operate its entire waste collection operation, Brown said.

The problem Cleveland faces is that the market for recyclable goods dried up, Brown said.

At one point, Cleveland was being paid about $20 a ton for recyclable goods.

By the end of 2018, the city was getting about $1.50 per ton, Brown said. That same year, China put restrictions in place that effectively closed its market, which had been accepting about 40% of U.S. recyclable goods. The market for plastics is virtually non-existent, he said.

Many cities are grappling with the same cost issues, Brown said.

Another problem plaguing the program is that if the recyclable materials are contaminated with non-recyclable garbage, the materials all end up at the landfill, reducing potential profits for the recycling vendor.

And Clevelanders are not good at carefully separating materials, Brown said. About 68% of the recyclable goods end up being discarded to landfills because of contamination.

“If 68% of your product is going to a landfill, you really don’t have a recycling program,” Brown told the council members.

That’s part of what the consultant will address – how to better educate residents so that more goods separated for recycling can actually be recycled.

Ultimately, Cleveland may be able to restart some recycling with cans, paper and cardboard – items for which there still is a market, Brown said.

And the administration wants residents to continue to separate their trash into the appropriate bins. Jackson recently said he intends to do so and hoped residents would stay in the practice for when the program restarts.

The city will continue to collect the fee it charges residents for waste collection, too, Brown said. That fee, $8.75 a month, appears in water bills and raises about $15 million a year.

The annual budget for waste management is about $30 million a year. The difference is picked up by the city’s general fund.

City Council President Kevin Kelley sought the update on recycling after members learned from the news media that the program was on hold – a point of irritation for several members.

Councilman Matt Zone said he considered it a missed opportunity by the Jackson administration. The city should have used the moment to better educate residents about recycling properly and to better explain the monthly fee – which many residents thought was for recycling.