When Some Municipalities Stopped Recycling, This Iowa County Processed More

Having never relied on China to repurpose its plastics and paper, Scott County didn’t take a direct hit like its coastal counterparts when the country enacted more restrictive standards on imported recyclables in early 2018. Even so, its resilience points to a potential path forward for recycling around the U.S., said

David Biderman,

executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America.

In 2017, the U.S. exported about 14 million metric tons of scrap recyclables to China, according to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, an industry trade group. A year later, after China enacted its new standards, that number dropped to around 9.1 million metric tons. Prices dropped, as materials began flooding the domestic market, and many municipalities struggled to respond.

Officials in Lexington, Ky., suspended paper recycling this spring. “We couldn’t even give our paper away,” said Angela Poe, senior program manager for public information and engagement at the city’s Department of Environmental Quality and Public Works. Now, like other municipalities around the country, Lexington is searching for long-term solutions.

Some lawmakers and recyclers are focused on fixing the industry as it stands, while others have emphasized becoming less reliant on recycling and instead reducing and reusing these materials.

“We’re starting to see local governments and others be innovative in coming up with responses,” Mr. Biderman said. “Scott County, because of their geography and the newness of their [material recovery facility], had some advantages.”

At the Scott Area Recycling Center, recyclables are sorted and organized through machinery and sent to nearby domestic markets that turn them into new products. Mixed paper, which is the most common recyclable that the facility receives, gets bundled together and sent to a paper mill, where it is shredded, mixed with water and pressed into new cardboard. Plastics sorted at the facility get turned into parking stops, containers and gardening tools, among other things.

Midwestern recyclers have benefited from these well-established domestic markets. Instead of sending recyclables to China—once a dependable market, particularly for western U.S. programs—places like Scott County rely on long-term relationships with nearby cities and industry, including Pratt Industries Paper Mill in Valparaiso, Ind.

“We’ve fared a little bit better over the last two years,” said

Kate Davenport,

co-president of Eureka Recycling, a nonprofit zero-waste recycler that contracts with Minnesota’s Twin Cities. The company never accepts plastics that don’t have an existing market and focuses on maintaining high-quality standards for recyclables, she said.

Still, the headwinds upending the industry are being felt here, too. Eureka Recycling splits revenue with Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Before, when the value of materials outweighed processing fees, Eureka wrote the checks to cities. Now, it is the other way around.

The price for paper, which makes up nearly half of the recyclables that Scott County receives, has dropped in recent years, from $110 a ton a few years ago to around $40, says

Kathy Morris,

director at the Waste Commission of Scott County.

Although an increase in volume is intended to help offset that drop, the county is falling about $47,000 short of breaking even, Ms. Morris says. She maintains that the county’s revenue will improve in the coming months and the commission remains focused on maintaining the program. “That’s what our residents want to be able to do,” said Ms. Morris. “So we stay the course and make the best of the bad markets right now.”

The Waste Commission also benefits from an integrated waste management system, which includes collection, processing, recycling and landfill management.

In 2016 the county switched to a single-stream recycling system, thanks in part to a $2.7 million, zero-interest loan from the Closed Loop Fund, a company that funds public and private-sector recycling programs. The method uses more advanced equipment to sort through materials, allowing residents to throw recyclables into one bin instead of separating them, but also runs the risk of more contamination.

At the same time, the commission started accepting more items from more cities. In its 2016 fiscal year, Scott County received 5,742 tons of recycling. In the 2019 fiscal year, that number has grown to 33,288. The county hired 19 new employees over the past three years to deal with the increased volume.

As participation increased, the commission bolstered its public education programs, using materials from the Recycling Partnership, a nonprofit that aims to improve recycling systems, like stickers on bins that signal what to keep out. Education programs are an increasingly reliable strategy used by recycling managers to decrease contamination at facilities and increase the value of recyclables.

The county’s renewed programs launched in the months before the market shifted.

“The timing of that was lucky, if nothing else,” said Bryce Stalcup, special waste manager at the Waste Commission.

Write to Jennifer Calfas at [email protected]