Reuse, recycle, restructure

By RALPH BARTHOLDT

Staff Writer

A plunge in the recycling market will affect how Coeur d’Alene residents dispose of plastic and glass, but it won’t affect their pocketbooks.

Coeur d’Alene City Council members on Tuesday agreed to restructure the city’s solid waste contract to absorb a crash in market demand for recyclables that will cost the city $17,000 a month.

City Administrator Troy Tymesen said a surplus of cash in the garbage fund, though, means the cost of getting rid of recyclables will not be passed on to residents.

“Due to savings experienced with respect to the current contract, the cost will not result in any rate increases to customers,” Tymesen said.

When the city awarded the contract two years ago and switched contractors from Waste Managment to Coeur d’Alene Garbage Services — the lowest bidder — the savings were not passed on to ratepayers, so a surplus of about $1 million accrued in the city’s sanitation fund, Tymesen said. That surplus will be used to pay the increased cost of recycling.

Getting rid of recyclables, once a profitable endeavor, recently hit a wall when China — the biggest buyer of recyclable junk — quit accepting many metals, plastics and paper products.

In addition, Chinese buyers reduced allowable contaminants from 15 percent to less than 1 percent.

“People put a lot of stuff in there (the blue bins),” Council member Dan Gookin said. “They are passionate about it, they get overzealous.”

Spools of wire, garden hose, bowling balls, tires, even cardboard pizza boxes with grease-coated bottoms are considered contaminants and will cause a whole load of recyclables to be sent to the landfill, instead of being systematically sorted and shipped to a buyer.

Modifying the garbage contract would include limiting products — such as aluminum, clean cardboard and hard plastic — that will be accepted in the future.

Phil Damiano, owner of Coeur d’Alene Garbage Service, said his company hauls 2,400 tons of recyclables off city streets annually.

Two years ago, the company was paid $10 a ton for recyclables, but China’s move to limit what it accepts, and to reduce allowable contaminants has resulted in an 1,100 percent cost change.

“It costs us $100 per ton,” he said. “That’s crazy. It’s unprecedented.”

The junk Damiano’s company collects is shipped to Pioneer Recycling in Tacoma, which finds a market, often in Asia.

Damiano said he shops around daily for the most cost-efficient taker of Coeur d’Alene trash. Since China curtailed its once-voracious and indiscriminate demand, however, the profit fell out of the garbage biz.

“I don’t landfill anything,” he said. “I take it to material recovery, but if they don’t have a market, where does it go?”

Amending the contract to reduce the type of materials his company collects will keep at least part of the recyclable stream flowing.

“Let’s get this recycling project in a position where it will be sustainable,” he said.

Absorbing the $17,000 monthly cost will be a temporary measure.

“This is hoped to be an interim gap-filler,” Tymesen said. “Until the market gets it figured out.”

Working with groups such as the Kootenai Environmental Alliance, the city hopes to educate residents about the changing market for recyclables.

Things like pill bottles, yogurt containers — which can be biohazards — and plastic bags can no longer be accepted.

“As soon as you mix those with recyclables, it becomes garbage,” Tymesen said.

The city is in a 10-year contract with Coeur d’Alene Garbage Services, that can include two three-year extensions.