Recycling suffered setbacks in 2019, but the future looks brighter, a local expert says. This year, haulers raised their prices for curbside recycling in northeast Indiana. One local community, Fremont, canceled the service due to the cost. However, the Brightmark Energy plant now under construction at Ashley seems poised to change the outlook for plastics recycling.
“The doom and gloom that it’s all going away is hogwash,” Steve Christman said about recycling. For 28 years, Christman has served as executive director of the Northeast Indiana Solid Waste Management District, based east of Ashley.
Right now, recycling is going through what Christman describes as a market adjustment. “The whole process was impacted back in late 2017, early 2018, when China put much more stringent contamination percentages on secondary materials,” Christman said.
Once the largest purchaser of U.S. plastics, China began rejecting nearly all plastic waste except for the highest-quality shipments. Many U.S. recyclers now are finding their plastics can’t be sold, and hundreds of local recycling programs across the nation have collapsed, according to an article published this month on statista.com.
Haulers in northeast Indiana responded by raising monthly rates for curbside recycling. Auburn recently agreed to a new contract with its hauler, Republic Services, that includes an extra recycling charge of 77 cents per home. Combined with an annual inflation increase, it takes residents’ bills from $11.42 to $12.59 per month for trash and recycling service combined.
Jim Smith of Republic Services told Auburn officials the value of recycled materials his company sells has fallen more than 50 percent, largely due to China’s rejection of U.S. recycled materials. At the time, Smith warned about a price increase for recycling that now has arrived for 2020. The cutback in recycling resale prices especially affects plastics and mixed paper, Smith said. Prices for aluminum, metals, and cardboard were remaining solid. “This recycling market is kind of going upside-down, and it’s been a problem,” Smith said at an Auburn council meeting in November.
In Waterloo, Republic proposed a monthly rate increase of $2.80 in next year’s combined rate for trash and recycling. Waterloo’s officials balked and switched to Washler Inc. for a monthly rate of $15.65 per home — 52 cents cheaper than Republic proposed for 2020, but still more than the $13.37 Waterloo residents paid Republic for most of this year. Washler‘s price also features an upgrade to one curbside collection of oversize items each year.