Municipal Recycling

NEW YORK LOSING ITS RECYCLING MOMENTUM?

Recycling advocates in New York state are concerned about the future of municipal recycling programs in that state.

In 1998 the financial condition of municipal recycling programs in New York seemed to be on solid ground with a portion of local solid waste tipping fee revenues providing a key source of funding.

But what was once a predictable source of funding has slumped dramatically with court approval of solid waste shipping across state lines. Haulers in New York are increasingly sending municipal solid waste (MSW) to more affordable landfills in other states or to privately owned landfills within New York. The resulting decline in shipments is reducing the revenues collected by in-state landfills and subsequently drying up funding for recycling programs.

Recycling advocates are beginning to propose strategies on how to curtail the cross-state flow of waste and revitalize recycling funding. There is concern, though, that many such measures would violate the Supreme Court’s finding that the interstate commerce clause protects the free flow of MSW across state lines.

Melanie O’Donnell is a recycling coordinator in the Syracuse area and president of NYSAR, the New York State Association for Reduction, Reuse and Recycling. She notes that “a large number of recycling programs are operating at a deficit” in New York right now, with many of them being subsidized by general funds. “Some may have cut back slightly in how they process material,” she adds, such as cutting back paper sorters and selling mixed paper instead of higher grades.

But she is concerned about the future of recycling programs as a handful of consolidated haulers operated without restrictions as to where they take their MSW and whether they exercise good faith efforts to process the recyclables.

O’Donell estimates that recycling programs in some 18 New York counties—mostly in the rural central part of the state—are “experiencing difficulties” by losing tipping fee revenues to landfills outside their jurisdictions.

“For 20 years people in this state have put together this comprehensive solid waste plan,” says O’Donnell. “People have plans in place that they developed with community consensus to reach a 40% recycling rate goal. I think New York state is a better place from an environmental standpoint because of it. Are we willing to see that go by the wayside?”