WHY ARE WE THROWING MONEY INTO OUR LANDFILL? PART 4

In last month’s article we looked at the amounts and types of paper that is being disposed of in our Walker Mountain Landfill. This month we are going to look at a category called “rigids”. This category is comprised of glass, plastics and metals. Using the same chart to break down these commodities, you will be able to see how many tons are being disposed of, how much it costs to put these materials into our landfill and how much potential revenue could be made from each type of recyclable if they were captured in a recycling stream instead of going into the landfill.

MATERIAL	TONS DISPOSED	TIPPING FEE COSTS	MARKET VALUE PER TON	LOST REVENUE POTENTIAL
#1 and #2 plastic bottles (drink ,detergent, milk, and other bottles)	3,435	$ 103,050	$ 300	$ 1,030,500
GLASS BOTTLES & JARS	4,121	$ 123,630	$ 14	$ 57,695
ALUMINUM CANS	981	$ 29,430	$1,000	$ 981,000
STEEL CANS	1,963	$ 58,890	$ 20	$ 38,860
Other Metals (hubcaps, swing sets, car motors, appliances, etc.)	1,000	$30,000	$20	$20,000
TOTALS	11,500	$ 345,000		$ 2,128,055

Just as with the paper, it is unrealistic to assume that we could capture every single pound of these recyclables. However, if we were able to divert just ½ of then from the landfill we would still be saving almost 6,000 tons from going into the landfill and being able to earn an additional $ 1,000,000 or so in revenues. If you add that to the $ 1,000,000 we could potentially get from the paper we discussed last month we could imagine being able to increase our current revenues by almost

$ 2,000,000 at current market prices.

Realistically speaking, in order for the Recycling Center to be able to handle all of these additional tons of materials, there would have to be some changes made to accommodate the increased volumes. These changes would certainly involve investing additional money into the program, and the plan would be to be able to recoup this investment with additional revenues.

We would need to have a strong game plan in place on just how to go about getting all of these tons of recyclables into a recycling stream before jumping into any sort of revisions being made if we want to be successful in the venture. We need to recognize that although we currently offer recycling opportunities to all of our citizens and businesses in Rome and Floyd County they are not currently being utilized to full potential. We need to determine what the obstacles to recycling are in our community address them as directly as possible. We will look at some of those obstacles in next month’s article.