The glass factor: Single stream recycling comes with cost increase to customers

Single stream recycling has officially arrived in Whitman County. With it have come some added costs, which may soon be reflected in customers’ bills, according to Devon Felsted, operations manager for Pullman Disposal.

Felsted’s service has applied for a rate increase with the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission.

He hopes it will be approved in July, expecting a $2.50 per customer per month increase.

Empire Disposal, based in Colfax, has also circulated notices of the cost increase.

One of the problems is the reduced value of the single stream material coming out of the county because glass is included in the material. That increases cost for the processors who have to get the glass out.

Felsted said the cost of separating glass affects the price of recycled paper in particular.

“If there’s pieces of glass in your paper, it’s not worth as much,” he explained.

David Nails, Whitman County Solid Waste Operations Manager, sells the baled recyclables to material separating facilities in Portland, Spokane or Seattle. These operations take the co-mingled recycled product and separate it, then sell m the material.

Public Works Director Mark Storey told county commissioners last week the county now has to pay recycling firms to take the single stream product because of inclusion of glass which was sought by Pullman. That ;put the county in a negative market position which will eventually have to be subsidized by rate payers, Storey told the commissioners.

Storey also said inclusion of glass in the county single stream led to some processors dropping Whitman County as a supply source.

Single-stream recycling means residents are not required to separate aluminum cans, milk jugs, cardboard and pop and beer bottles.

Before the change to single-stream, Whitman County’s transfer site south of Colfax baled and sold recyclable items, packed together in-kind, such as bales of aluminum, bales of plastic and bales of mixed paper.

Now, the recyclables are baled all together at the transfer site, and once sold to a material separating facility, the recyclable items are divided up by machinery that was originally developed in the 1970s.

Processes used for this include magnetic separation for certain metals such as steel and aluminum.

In Whitman County, recyclables are first collected by Empire Disposal and Pullman Disposal trucks and delivered to the county transfer site.

All told, Felsted said he expects that if there is a rate increase for recycling pick-up service in the county, it will be accepted by customers.

“Most people I hear from, they’re happy to pay a couple bucks extra for the added convenience,” he said.