Recycle Cart Ownership and Servicing Questioned

A resident writes:

"I am hearing more complaints about the recycle carts. The county has quit supplying them. New people moving in, don't know how or where to get a cart. They are angry they didn't get one from the program. People who move out of area, are taking their carts. Who owns the carts? the resident, the county, is it attached to the property address? Still plenty of confusion in this program."

This question is addressed on the County's web site at: http://www.stlouisco.com/doh/waste/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions.pdf. Here is some of the information provided.

13) Who Is Responsible For The Recycling Cart?

The recycling cart is the property of the Saint Louis County Department of Health, but it has been placed in your care for your use. If you decide you don’t want it, then we will pick it back up from your residence. If you decide to keep it, then it will be your responsibility to make sure it is used properly and not damaged by misuse.

If you move, be aware that the cart is assigned to the residence – please leave it behind for whoever moves in next.

14) If My Recycling Cart Needs To Be Serviced, Whom Do I Call?

The recycling cart comes with a one‐year parts‐and‐labor warranty for any damages that occur during shipping and for any defective materials and parts. Damage caused by misuse is not covered by the warranty. If you have a problem you believe is covered by the warranty, please contact the Department of Health by calling (314) 615‐8958 so that a repair or replacement can be scheduled.

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To address a few other areas not mentioned in the handbook:

a. The cart was given to the resident in early 2007 (best guess). The cart belongs to the County, but you are responsible for its care and repair. This is a 1-time "gift."  If you need a new cart, sorry but you will need to buy one from either your trash hauler or the local hardwae store.

b. When a person moves, the cart should be left at the residence where it was delivered. Unfortunately, this may not be the case as people often take their trash and recycle retainers with them. The County will not enforce return of the cart so the new owner will have to buy their own.

c. If your cart needs to be serviced, that's your responsibility. You may want to consult with your trash hauler to see if they can help. It's not a question "if" a recycle cart will break down, but "when". These carts get banged around quite a bit when they're emptied into the truck.
 
d. We're not aware of a requirement that a resident must use a recycle cart. Other types of carts, trash cans, paper bags, etc. should be acceptable.  Plastic is not recycleable thus plastic bags should not be used.

Questions?  Contact St. Louis County Department of Health, (314) 615-8958.

QRS Officials Say St. L County Sent Bins for Recycling

Officials from QRS Recycling say St. Louis County sent the recycling bins to them which were purchased last year to be "recycled." They could not provide a count on the number of bins delivered.

While the trash services provided under the county's program initiated last year are working satisfactorily, there are more than 300 subdivisions who opted out of the program mainly due to the politics involved. The result has been at least two lawsuits - still in the courts - with threat of more to come.

When major changes are initiated, there's a certain element of people who just accept the change. But there are others who say they just "smell a rat." That seems to be the case with the County's trash program. Some things just don't seem to mesh.

One concern is that no local trash companies were selected to provide services to county residents. Is this a big problem today? Could it be a big problem tomorrow? Many say yes and voted to keep their business with the local providers.

It's been estimated St. Louis County has spent into the millions of dollars in manpower, supplies, travel, printing, postage and more in getting the program off the ground . . . and it's not there yet.

County Says "No" to Advertising Trash & Recycling Programs

BURKE WASSON, Staff Reporter at the Call Newspapers reports . . .
http://www.callnewspapers.com/

While the fate of trash districts in unincorporated St. Louis County remains to be decided in court, the County Council last week rejected a proposal to further educate residents on recycling and "waste-management issues.

"The council voted 4-3 to shoot down a bill that would have allocated an additional $100,000 to the Hughes Group Inc. "for design of a recycling public education program and public-awareness campaigns on waste-management issues."

Sixth District Councilman Steve Stenger, D-south county, voted against the legislation along with 3rd District Councilwoman Colleen Wasinger, R-Town and Country; 5th District Council Vice Chair Barbara Fraser, D-University City; and 7th District Council-man Greg Quinn, R-Ballwin.In the minority were 1st District Chair Hazel Erby, D-University City; 2nd District Councilwoman Kathleen Burkett, D-Overland; and 4th District Councilman Mike O'Mara, D-north county.

With millions of dollars already spent on the county's trash program, Stenger said allocating an additional $100,000 on a program already well known is unnecessary. "Basically, the $100,000 was for education relating to recycling," Stenger said. "And that goes right to the trash issue that we already have spent millions of dollars on. And I think that my thinking was that we've already spent millions of dollars on this issue. People have already been educated on recycling. I think we all know now what the black (recycling) can is for from the county. And I think that we don't need to be told about it further.

"Stenger also was opposed to county officials recommending the Indiana-based Hughes Group for the contract instead of a local firm and believes officials could find more cost effective ways to inform residents about recycling and waste management.

"They wanted to hire out and outsource to some company out of the county $100,000 worth of essentially educational materials for recycling," he said. "What I would suggest is — once again — it's the same theme. Let's tighten the belt. Let's not expand the belt, right? I think that we could print up some nice things through the Health Department and probably print them up on a copy machine. You could print thousands of copies for a lot cheaper than $100,000. And if they want to distribute them, you could still mail them out within the budget that we have already. I don't think we need to appropriate $100,000 to further educate people on recycling when we've already been educated about recycling."

"I think recycling is great. Don't get me wrong. I just don't see spending $100,000 additional on recycling. And that's why I voted 'no' on it. And I think that was the thinking of everyone else who voted 'no' as well,'' he added.

As for trash districts, a St. Louis County Circuit Court judge could decide this summer whether county officials legally established them without a vote of the people. American Eagle, along with south county resident Brett Buchanan and north county resident, Greg Porter, filed suit last August against the county alleging trash districts were improperly established because they were not approved by voters in each district.

American Eagle is not one of the three haulers awarded bids by the County Coun-cil to exclusively serve trash districts. The plaintiffs contend Section 2.180.24 of the County Charter requires voters to approve the establishment of such districts.

Views From A County Resident; The Handwriting Is On the Wall

I just read the article on your website titled "Recycling Business going Bust".

Right now it is not a good situation here in the St. Louis area as well.

My husband has talked to some of his friends that are in the trash hauling business. When they began this recycling & would take it to the recycling center, they would be paid about $20.00 per ton.

They ( the trash haulers) are now having to pay $35.00 per ton to get rid of their recyclables. Keep in mind that if they take in 5 tons a day that's $175.00 per day, multiply that by 5 days & you are looking at $875.00 per week. That is a lot of money, especially for the small hauler.
Someone is going to have to help pay for this & you can bet it will be the customers again!

While the trash hauler is charging the customer already, thanks to St. Louis County, they do not make enough money to cover the cost of what is happening now.

Thank You St. Louis County!

Also, in this article there was mention of stock piling. This is not a very good idea with some of these materials as they can combust. Just take a look at what happened the other day with the QRS company in South County. This alone will put a burden on the other recycling centers, which some are already busting at the seams. One of my husbands friends told him that he had to sit and wait to dump his recyclables & then when he finally got to, he had to dump it onto the parking lot because there was no room in the building. It may be recyclable items, but I think the law would look at it as littering!

As far as Charlie Dooley & the rest of his gang, I really don't think they will do anything about the mess that they have helped to create. Now that all is done, their comments will probably be, "not our problem anymore, it's up to the trash hauler". It's just like the health department with those containers, they took it upon themselves to get those containers, said that they are the property of St. Louis County Gov., then put all the responsibility onto the trash hauler to maintain them & possibly replace them.

What a mess!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for your very valuable website and giving people the chance to say how they feel about what is going on in our area.

Respectfully Submitted,
Sherry W.

Recycling goes from boom to bust as economy stalls. Is St. L County Next?

Worries mount with each new load of cardboard, aluminum cans and plastics jugs dumped at West Virginia's largest county recycling center.

Faced with a dramatic slump in the recycling market, the director of the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority has cut 20 of his 24 employees' work week to four days from five, shuttered six of the authority's drop-off stations and is urging residents to hoard their recyclables after informing municipalities with curbside recycling programs that the center will accept only paper until further notice.

It would seem that our St. Louis County Recycling Program may have a major problem coming up if the recycling centers that our County Haulers are taking their loads and will not be able to resell those loads at a profit. What will the haulers do if they do not have a place to take them to? It will be much more expensive for the haulers to take them to landfill sites.

This raises a serious question. How will the County Administration handle this potential crisis?

Just months after riding an incredible high, the recycling market has tanked almost in lockstep with the global economic meltdown. As consumer demand for autos, appliances and new homes dropped, so did the steel and pulp mills' demand for scrap, paper and other recyclables.

Cardboard that sold for about $135 a ton in September is now going for $35 a ton. Plastic bottles have fallen from 25 cents to 2 cents a pound. Aluminum cans dropped nearly half to about 40 cents a pound, and scrap metal tumbled from $525 a gross ton to about $100.

While few across the country appear to be taking such drastic measures, the recycling market has gotten so bad that haulers in Oregon and Nevada who were once paid for recyclables are now getting nothing or in some cases are having to pay to unload their wares.

In Washington State, what was once a multimillion-dollar revenue source for the city of Seattle may become a liability next year as the city may have to start paying companies to take their materials. Some in the business are describing the downturn as the worst and fastest ever.

"It's never gone from so good to so bad so fast," said Marty Davis, president of Midland Davis Corp. in Pekin, Ill., who has been in the recycling business since 1975. The turnaround caught everyone off guard, said Steven Kowalsky, president of Empire Recycling in Utica, N.Y.

Most recyclables are shipped to Asian countries that use the material to make products that are shipped backed to the United States to be sold. But the market shift is now jeopardizing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of long-term contracts for scrap metal as some companies that signed when prices were high are trying to cancel or postpone deliveries to take advantage of the cheaper spot market, Garino said.

Davis, of Midland Davis Corp. in Illinois, said he hopes to wait out the market and may rent warehouse space to store his more perishable recyclables, like paper, until he can find buyers. He has some room to stockpile cans and plastics because in July, when prices were high, he unloaded more material than during any month in the past 10 years. "It's going to be bleak for a while," he said. "We can just make our piles taller, and hopefully by spring, things will be a little better." Whether that will come as early as spring is debatable.

Just months after riding an incredible high, the recycling market has tanked almost in lockstep with the global economic meltdown. As consumer demand for autos, appliances and new homes dropped, so did the steel and pulp mills' demand for scrap, paper and other recyclables.

More information at: http://tiny.cc/CountyRecycle

Ladue Does Trash Collections Right; Allows Private Hauling Between Carriers & Residents

City officials in Ladue say a uniform recycling plan will be in place by Jan. 1. Under the plan, standard blue recycling bags will be available at two locations and will follow rules set forth in St. Louis County's new ordinance. Unlike St. Louis County, the city will let residents select their own recycling by various carriers.

Also unlike St. Louis County, the plan was approved earlier by a committee of residents and officials and this week by the City Council.

Although waste hauling in Ladue is essentially private between carriers and residents, the city imposes some controls, such as allowing backyard pickups only. Carriers have agreed that recycling collections will be weekly, during the second trash pickup of the week.

Residents are not required to recycle but are being charged for the service under the new county law.

To Sort or Not To Sort in the Twin Cities

The thought is a natural one for those going through the chore of sorting their recyclables: Do I have to do this?

It's a question that even recycling haulers can't agree on. And as recycled materials fetch higher prices, the stakes are rising as they compete for contracts.

The big national haulers, No. 1 Waste Management and No. 2 Allied Waste Industries, which handle collections for about 300,000 households in the metro Twin Cities, are promoting a "single stream" system where customers put all recyclables -- paper, glass, plastic and metals -- into one cart. People prefer the convenience, so they recycle more, these companies argue.

Some Minnesota recycling haulers, including Eureka Recycling in St. Paul and Randy's Environmental Services out of Delano, advocate sticking with the traditional "double-stream" system, where households sort their recyclables into two groups: separating the paper from containers of glass, plastic and metal. Maybe the big carts increase collections, but all those materials gets smashed together inside, making them unusable, they argue.

The disagreement resurfaces periodically, as local governments bidding out the pickup contracts get hit with both sales pitches. And last month, Allied Waste said it's sweetening the pot by offering store coupons as customer rewards, which it's testing in three markets across the country, including the Twin Cities. The more a household recycles, the more coupons it wins, redeemable at scores of retailers as varied as grocery stores, Ikea and Target.com.

Looking for advice, cities went to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency as long as two years ago. The agency commissioned a report, by Tim Goodman & Associates in St. Louis Park, but by citing pros and cons for each it resolves little. "Right now, personally, I would have to give the edge to two-sort, in terms of the quality of the actual recycled materials," Goodman said. "But people still have disagreements, and they feel very strongly one way or the other."

Americans produce an average of 4.6 pounds of trash per person per day, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Minnesota is near the top of the states in recycling its trash -- at 43.2 percent of its solid waste, it is second only to Oregon. Market forces may start bumping up rates everywhere, however.

Commodities prices for the materials bailed or binned out of recycling centers -- to be remade into new water bottles, cans, and more -- are climbing steeply, with analysts citing once again voracious demand out of China. A ton of recycled newsprint in the New York market rose from $120 in January to $200 this month, said Mark Arzoumanian, editor of industry publication Official Board Markets. Comparable increases on the recyclables spot markets have aluminum priced at $2,000 a ton and plastics at $440 a ton.

That has haulers working to increase their emphasis on recycling, and the payoff is already showing up. At Allied Waste, for example, revenue from sales of recyclables rose 21 percent last year from 2006 to $257 million, according to its annual report.

Collecting coupons

One sign of Phoenix-based Allied Waste's growing interest in the recycling business is the new RecycleBank partnership that it's now marketing to metro-area communities. RecycleBank weighs the recyclables collections and awards store coupons to customers based on how much they recycle. Popular coupons among customers include local grocery stores, saving families as much as $20 a month on their food bills, said Ron Gonen, CEO of the Pennsylvania-based company.

Maple Grove is one community Allied Waste and RecycleBank have approached, because its current recycling contract expires at the end of this year, City Manager Al Madsen said. Madsen believes both the convenience of no sorting and the incentive program might appeal to city residents, and encourage recycling. And at least one resident agrees. "The easier you make it, the more people will do it," said Kristin Archer. And the coupons? "I totally think that when I'm considering whether to walk that tin can to the street, this would give me that little more incentive," Archer said.

Keeping it clean

Randy's Environmental Services just bet $8 million on double-stream recycling with a trash hauling and recycling facility it opened last summer. "The value of the commodities is better protected with the two streams," said Jim Wollschlager, operations director. "We just feel it's the better way of recycling."

The customers in Goodman's report agreed -- the paper mills and glass companies, for example, that buy the materials from recycling facilities. They told Goodman they're seeing a dramatic increase in contamination -- glass shards in paper and metal flecks in plastics -- that makes the materials worth less, or even worthless, he said.

On average, the report said, two-stream operations lost 6.4 percent of their materials to contamination, compared with 27.7 percent for single-stream operations. However, the buyers also told Goodman a lot depends on the facility, with some single-sort processors just as clean as the two-sorters. Wollschlager estimated Randy's at 3 to 4 percent. In an interview, Waste Management spokeswoman Julie Ketchum put contamination rates at its two Minnesota facilities at about 6 percent.

Still, many see a future of not less sorting, but more. One Burnsville household prefers more sorting. David and Mindy Limberg said they question how well their current single-source service really works. "It's easy for us, but I have less confidence all of it is getting recycled," David said.

In Wayzata, a Randy's Services client, residents sort "organics" -- such as food scraps, pizza boxes and full vacuum cleaner bags -- from their regular trash. City recycling coordinator Sonny Clark said Wayzata saves on dumping fees: $15 a ton for organics, compared with $50 for trash.

Minneapolis, which has residents sort their own recyclables into at least four groups -- paper, plastic, glass and metals -- earned $1.6 million on its recycling program last year, said recycling director Susan Young. "We were able to cover increased costs in fuel and personnel for 2008," Young said. "Water went up, sewer went up, and the storm-water fee went up, but the solid-waste fee stayed the same."