Alabama city transitions to single-stream recycling

The city of Auburn, Alabama, received a $350,000 grant to expand its single-stream recycling efforts in 2019.


Photo courtesy of the city of Auburn, Alabama

The city of Auburn, Alabama, received notification from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management that its grant request of $350,000 to purchase single-stream recycling carts had been approved the first week of September, according to a press release from David Dorton, the city’s director of public affairs.

Timothy Woody, environmental services director for the city of Auburn, says the city had initially applied for and received a $288,000 grant in the spring of 2017 from the Alabama Recycling Fund, administered by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management to purchase 5,600 single-stream carts that each have a 95-gallon capacity. This spring, he says the city applied for $350,000 in grant funding to purchase 6,688 carts and later decided to add $22,600 to that request in order to purchase a total of 7,000 carts.

“Curbside recycling in our city is not mandatory,” Woody says. “Therefore, it is our estimation that we will be pretty close to done with the transition with the upcoming cart purchase.”

To date, Woody says the city provides waste removal services for about 15,600 homes each week. He adds that 35 to 40 percent of those homes participate in the source-separated curbside program. By purchasing 7,000 carts in 2018 – in addition to the 5,600 that were purchased in 2017 – Woody says he hopes the city will be able to provide single-stream recycling to 82 percent of the homes it services. 

Woody adds that the city of Auburn has offered curbside recycling since 1987; however, single-stream recycling has not been “feasible” for the city until about five years ago when Pratt Recycling opened a facility nearby

“The city of Auburn has wanted to transition to single-stream for several years now, but there was not a processor located within a reasonable travel distance to make it economically feasible,” he says. “In 2013, Pratt Recycling Inc. partnered with the city of Columbus, Georgia, about 35 miles from Auburn to open a single-stream processing facility, which made it more feasible for us to start single-stream recycling in our city.” 

In addition to the new carts, Woody says the city also purchased two 28-cubic-yard automated side loader garbage trucks in 2017. It also purchased a 28-cubic-yard automated side loader packer truck for $255,000 to service single-stream recycling collection, with two more of these vehicles on order that he expects to arrive by October for $524,100. 

“We used KANN trough loader trucks to collect source-separated recycling at curbside at a cost of approximately $187,000 per truck in today’s dollars, where [we] would have incurred costs [up to $748,000] to replace them. One other thing to point out is we expect a 10 percent increase in fuel costs related to the travel distance to and from Columbus. Conversely, we also look at the cost savings to be realized in terms of reduced workers’ compensation costs [and] improved employee safety.”