County Recycling Plant Looks to Expand

The Pierce County (Wisc.) Board is considering voting on a plan to expand the county’s recycling building.

This month, about five years after the program moved into a new building on the outskirts of Ellsworth, the Pierce County Board will be asked to vote on a plan to expand the county's recycling building.

County supervisors will consider spending close to $1 million to enlarge the building, as well as purchase new equipment. The money for the project would come from a $25 annual fee assessed on each home in the county.

In a memo to the board's finance committee, Solid Waste Administrator Troy Gansluckner said the expansion will allow the county to keep its commercial customers by keeping up with a new recycling trend: commingling.

The county currently runs a "source-separated" program, which requires residents to place each commodity in a separate container.

"For example," said Gansluckner, "clear glass is placed in a separate container and cardboard is placed in a separate container."

Under the newer process, householders need only separate items into two streams. Fibers (cardboard, magazines, newspaper, office paper and mixed paper) would be set out curbside in one container. Plastics, glass, aluminum, tin cans and other containers could be set out in a second container.

Commingling makes it cheaper to collect and transport materials, said Gansluckner.

Besides, he said, residents are more likely to recycle more materials if they don't have to do so much sorting.

Foth and Van Dyke, a consultant firm based in Green Bay, estimates that county residents will recycle an additional 300 tons of materials per year if the county goes to a commingling program.

Gansluckner thinks that estimate is conservative. He predicts an increase of closer to 700 tons, a 25 percent increase over current tonnage.

"Because Pierce County is not designed at this time to handle commingled materials, the county has already lost the City of Prescott's recyclables," said Gansluckner. He said River Falls, the county's largest supplier of materials, is now negotiating with garbage haulers on its contract, which expires in January.

"(The potential bidders) will most likely bid the recycling program on a commingled basis," said Gansluckner. He said that if the county loses that contract also, its program would become less efficient to run.

Private companies neither pay nor are paid when they deliver recyclables to the center in Ellsworth. But the county sells the materials and last year earned $238,000 from those sales.

In his memo to the finance committee, Gansluckner explained that the new process would include a second sorting platform, a disk screen to remove contaminants in containers, a separator to mechanically sort out aluminum, outside glass bunkers, building and equipment modifications, and a 25-foot extension to the building.

The new equipment would cost $640,000 and building modifications $170,000.

Gansluckner predicts labor costs would increase the recycling operating budget by $22,306 per year for a half-time union employee.

Still, he said, this alternative would require less labor than other choices.

He said the county could also take in an extra 840 tons of recyclable materials from outside the county. The county could charge to take that material.

The consultants figured that annual operating expenses-including heating, utility, maintenance and labor costs-would increase by $37,646.

"Foth and Van Dyke indicate that this can easily be offset by increased revenues, depending on the additional tonnage received and market price," said Gansluckner.

The consultants also estimate that commingling will save the county $28,968 a year because it will cost less to pick up county-owned containers at recycling drop-off sites.

The boxes have multiple compartments and the county typically pulls in and unloads a box when only one compartment is full, said Gansluckner. Under the commingling program, the box wouldn't need to be emptied until it was entirely full.

The county now has a $184,596 balance in the solid waste fee fund, said Gansluckner. The fees will generate another $330,000 in 2001.

He said that if the recycling program borrowed $970,000 from the county's general fund, the debt could be repaid by 2004. Herald Online (Pierce County, WI)