More than 3,200 households have opted into the City of Cleveland’s new recycling program since the enrollment period began two weeks ago, according to figures released by the city at a joint meeting of two city council subcommittees Thursday morning. The response represents about 10% of the city’s goal to have between 30,000 and 35,000 households in the new recycling program, which is designed to reduce contamination in the city’s recycling collection and, in turn, bringing processing costs down.
The city’s curbside recycling program has been operating without a contract with a recycling processor for more than a year. The previous contract expired in April 2020 after city officials said bids from interested firms came in significantly over budget. The substantial increase in costs was due in large part to rampant contamination in the recyclables that the city collected. From spoiled food to car batteries and even dead animals, the contamination requires the recycling processor to spend more time and money sorting what’s salvageable. Coupled with a significant drop in the international market for raw recyclables several years ago, the city’s previous recycling system became unsustainable, officials said.
“Contamination is a critical component of this,” said Jason Wood, the city’s chief of sustainability. “The high contamination rates contribute to some of the higher pricing that we got in previous bids. Our goal in the opt-in process is to make sure that we are recruiting and then educating folks to be quality recyclers.”