SEATTLE (Recycling Monster): Curbside recycling in Escambia County may soon cost an extra fee as the Emerald Coast Utilities Authority struggles to deal with high recycling contamination rates.
Meanwhile, Pensacola is also considering changes to its recycling program after ECUA informed it of a price increase.
ECUA Executive Director Bruce Woody told the News Journal that the utility is considering a rate structure change that would charge ECUA customers for having a recycling can.
Since ECUA opened its regional recycling facility in 2016, curbside recycling has been included for all ECUA customers who use ECUA's trash pick-up service, which is all of the unincorporated areas of Escambia County.
"Right now, you can opt-in or opt-out (of curbside recycling)," Woody said. "It's proposed going forward that there'll be a rate for that second can that's a little bit higher for recycling and a little bit lower for trash. So that those folks that are interested in and dedicated to recycling still have that option. For those customers who aren't interested in recycling and are really just interested in the lowest rate, or maybe don't even need a second can, they can actually lower their bill."
ECUA's recycling facility has faced three major shutdowns in two years. Last year, a delay in getting needed parts for equipment forced a closure for three months, then a fire forced the facility to close, and this year it closed for more than two months because of staffing shortages.
Woody says the change is needed because recycling has become so contaminated with non-recyclables in recent years that nearly half of what comes in on recycling trucks is in landfills.
"Half of what comes in the door is garbage," Woody said.
ECUA uses a single-stream recycling system, which means the customer puts all recyclables in the same recycling can. An ECUA recycling truck will deliver the commingled recyclables to a processing facility that will do the sorting.
"While sorting is not required by the customer, it is very important that only acceptable items be placed in the gray recycling can," according to instructions on ECUA's website.
The ECUA's recycling facility uses sophisticated machines and human labor to separate trash and recycling, but high levels of contamination make that much more costly or even impossible.
Not all contamination can be removed. For example, Woody said ECUA paper recycling couldn't fetch as high of a price because of high levels of things like plastic bags that can't be economically removed.
It's not just ECUA customers who are putting trash in the recycling bin, but municipalities that use ECUA's recycling facility.
Local governments like Pensacola, Fort Walton Beach, Okaloosa County, Fairhope, Alabama, and Mobile, Alabama, take recycling to ECUA's recycling facility.
Woody said ECUA previously changed municipalities on a sliding scale based on the contamination of the recycling load, anywhere from $15 a ton up to $45 a ton.
Courtesy: www.pnj.com
