Town poised to abandon recycling due to rising costs

‘Trash it’ appears to be town council’s attitude toward supporting climbing recycling costs with an approximate 85-cent per week hike to solid waste collection bills. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini. Video by Mark Williams.

It appears that after years of recycling the Town of Front Royal is poised to abandon the environmentally-friendly practice. Consideration of dropping recycling versus adding 85 cents to monthly residential utility bills will be on council’s agenda next Monday, July 8. But don’t blame the town’s elected officials for the perhaps harsh decision, blame the CHINESE.

Information presented to council at a Monday, July 1 work session indicated that town officials are simply bowing to international and national trends sending the price of resold recyclables plummeting toward the center of the earth, or perhaps the bottom of the ocean – the same places all those deteriorating plastics and other materials may soon be heading.

“China was the world’s largest global importer of most types of recycling materials, importing more than 7.3 million metric tons of waste products (over half the world’s waste paper, metal and plastics) from developed countries,” a power point by Town Public Works Department Director Robbie Boyer noted, adding perhaps unhappily for those Westerners profiting from the resale of those recycled materials to China, “In 2017, China passed the National Sword policy banning plastic waste from being imported – for the protection of the environment and people’s health.” The result of the policy instituted in January 2018 was China prohibiting 90% of what it had been accepting from the world of recyclable materials.

Consequently the 400-plus tons of recyclables collected by the Town of Front Royal’s Solid Waste Department annually (469.37 tons in 2018) have become non-profitable to Southern Scrap of Winchester, where they have been hauled for re-sale for over a decade.

In December of 2017, the final month before the new Chinese recycling law took effect, the price per ton for the resale of mixed paper was $32 per ton. As of December 2018 that price had dropped to $4.69 per ton. And the price of cardboard is now at a 12-year low, Boyer told Front Royal’s elected officials.

In April of this year Southern Scrap informed the Town it was no longer taking cardboard; and on May 1 the company added that it would accept cardboard at a $20 per ton processing fee. So where once the Town’s recycled cardboard was gladly accepted as a profit-generating product, now it is an annoyance carrying a cost for its disposal. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, while no date is attached the power point notes that Southern Scrap “no longer accepts items from the Town of Front Royal or the City of Winchester”.

The Town’s Waste Management may be about to get easier, if more polluting at the County landfill.

A Winchester Star reporter’s article dated June 21 included in the power point said that Frederick County had received 60-day notice that Southern Scrap was terminating its contract with that county government. So like Front Royal, likely at the County’s Bentonville landfill, Frederick County is pondering dumping all its solid waste, plastics, mixed papers, glass, aluminum and steel into its trash landfill.

Two options were prepared by town staff to move forward. The first was to continue recycling in single stream (unseparated) collection for shipment to Republic Services of Manassas. Curbside collection would continue with once a week transport to the Manassas collector. The cost would be $105 per ton of unseparated recyclables, or an estimated annual increase to the Town Budget of $43,050.

On the good news side of that equation is that planned purchase of a new recycle trailer in the FY 2020 budget would not be necessary, so the $48,000 committed to that purchase could cover the first year of that new recycle deal, plus about $5,000 that could be applied to the second-year budget if necessary.

The downside is that to maintain recycling an increase to the solid waste collection portion of monthly Town utility bills would be necessary. That increase was projected at 85 cents per residential customers: to $14.95 per typical large residential 96-gallon container monthly, compared to a current rate of $14.10; or to $12.85 per 32-gallon container, compared to a current rate of $12 even.

The other option was suspension of the recycling program – everything goes back in the trash, resulting in no tipping fee charges. Responding to a question about impact on department employees, Boyer told council that the Town’s recycling staff was comprised of three people. It was not clear what the fate of those three employees would be, though it seems they might be needed to help handle the additional materials headed to trash collection. (I wonder if they’ll let us keep our recycling bins for heavier trash like accumulated paper, glass or metals to prevent over-weighing down the trash containers?)

‘It’s ALL trash now’ appears to be Front Royal’s solution to the plummeting global recycling market trends.

Asked about the immediacy of action, Town Manager Joe Waltz told council and the mayor, “We’re at a crossroads tonight – it looks like we have to raise the rates on recyclables,” to continue forward.

And while Winchester has put out a public survey to gauge citizens’ wishes on a path forward – Waltz said it appeared a majority wished to keep recycling – Front Royal’s Town Council reached an almost immediate consensus to proceed toward suspension.

“I say drop it and get rid of it,” Eugene Tewalt told his colleagues to some expressions of agreement.

However Vice-Mayor William Sealock pointed out that there is a state mandate on recycling that might preclude abandonment. Waltz noted that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) “25%-mandate” concerning recycling has evolved into a regional mandate with varying requirements from community to community. The town manager also told council he believes the market for recyclables will eventually turn to a more positive return rate, again reducing municipal costs.

According to Boyer’s power point, the original DEQ mandate approved by the Virginia General Assembly required that, “Each county, city, town or regional authority was required to establish recycling programs that would meet or exceed a recycling goal of 25% of its municipal solid waste generation.” That standard approved in 1989 was phased in between 1991 and 1995.

And while that 25% standard stands for many localities, a condition added in 2006 allows for a 15% recycling rate for communities meeting certain socio-economic standards, including population densities “less than 100 persons per square mile or with an unemployment rate 50% higher than the statewide average”.

With no clear indication the Town would be considered in immediate violation of the 25% state-wide mandate, said he heard a clear council consensus to stop recycling and decide whether to pick it back up were market conditions to become more favorable. As noted above, the matter was moved toward council action at the July 8 meeting, next Monday at 7 p.m.

The Royal Examiner’s camera was there: