To recycle or not
Council debates economics of curbside recycling
How much are Minot residents willing to pay for curbside recycling?
That’s the question Minot City Council members want answered as the city investigates whether to start up a citywide and possibly regional recycling program.
The council received a study report Tuesday that indicated recycling could cost about $842,000 and possibly more than $1.5 million a year, depending on the process selected. The pricetags left council members questioning how much green the city wants to spend to be environmentally green.
“I’m not thinking the goal should be to make money on this. I guess I just don’t want to lose quite as much as we’re talking about here,” council member Stephan Podrygula said.
Jason Sorenson, assistant director of Public Works, presented the recycling report, assisted by consultants Melissa Knutson of CPS Engineering, Grand Forks, and Robert Craggs of Burns & McDonnell, Bloomington, Minn.
The report’s four options included two sizes of material recovery facilities, which are facilities that process recyclables to be shipped to market. It included a consolidation facility, where materials are collected and transferred. A final option was to contract with a vendor for the entire process, which was the most expensive per-ton alternative based on assumed participation. The larger material recovery facility was the most expensive in estimated cost per year based on assumed participation.
Sorenson said his recommendation is the consolidation option, estimated to cost $211 a ton or about $842,260 a year.
“Other than the capital outlay for the building and the compactor, that facility could be run with existing staff at the landfill at least for the first couple years, based on the quantities of what we would see and what we’d expect for the first couple years,” Sorenson said.
Knutson noted the costs presented are processing costs only and don’t include collection. By switching one of the bi-weekly garbage pickups to recycling, there’s no additional collection cost.
The recycling study’s cost calculations were based on what currently are historic low prices for materials in the recycling market. They also were based on collection tonnage that could take three to five years to build through growing participation in a local recycling program.
“We need a recycling system whereby the incentive and the economics of this thing are good for us,” council member Josh Wolsky said. “Right now, it’s not there. It doesn’t even look like it’s close to there.”
“There is certainly a desire on the part of the number of people in the community to recycle,” council president Mark Jantzer said. “The reason people are interested in doing recycling is because it’s good for the planet. It isn’t because it makes money, and so we have to find a way to balance that.”
He encouraged continuing to look at recycling options.
Wolsky agreed more study is needed.
“I want us to get to the right place, and I want us to be better stewards. I want Minot to be viewed as an environmentally sensitive and conscious place because I think that’s important,” he said.
City Manager Tom Barry said the question is how much cost are residents willing to bear. At the council’s direction, the Public Works Department will create some user-fee scenarios and analyze what those funding levels can support in recycling activities.
“I would love to hear from people,” council member Lisa Olson said, encouraging the public to share thoughts on recycling fees through whatever channel they choose.
“It’s very important that we have some kind of broad input and figure out what the community really wants – what the majority of the community really wants, because they’re going to be people on both ends of the spectrum and whole bunch of folks in the middle,” Jantzer added.
A question arose at the meeting about how KALIX in Minot can conduct its recycling program given the economics of recycling.
KALIX recycling center manager Kirk Opstedal said Wednesday that recycling is just a small portion of the nonprofit’s entire operation. Focused on creating job opportunities for clients, the center isn’t operated strictly for profitability, although its profitability is improved by having sorted recyclables rather than operating as a single-stream facility.
“Single stream is hurting a lot,” Opstedal said. “Everything we have is sorted. When we actually send them out to mills, we get a better price.”
KALIX uses a broker to sell materials to different markets, with shipping to various locations, he said. The center can offer tokens to people who drop off recyclables because tokens are donated by Marketplace Foods and aren’t based on the market returns on the materials.
Also, a few months ago, the Minot Environmental Policy Group made recommendations to the council regarding single-use plastic bags. Council discussion had been postponed until recycling was back on the agenda.
The council delayed discussion again because of House Bill 1200, sponsored by Rep. Dan Ruby, R-Minot. The bill would prohibit the city from regulating or imposing fees on use of plastic bags. That bill, which passed the North Dakota House 72-19 on Tuesday, now goes to the Senate.