Weather interrupts recycling, waste collection

Heavy snow in some parts of the United States and freezing rain in others is poised to interrupt the collection of collection of discarded materials throughout the final week of January.

A Sunday, Jan. 25, alert from Pennsylvania-based Accuweather Inc. says heavy snow, ice and “dangerous cold” was poised to affect travel and work conditions for some 200 million Americans.

The organization has made a preliminary estimate of some $100 to $115 billion in “damage and economic loss” caused by the weather system, saying that figure “accounts for damage to homes and businesses, disruptions to commerce and supply chain logistics, tourism losses, impacts to shipping operations at major hubs, financial losses from extended power outages, major travel delays, as well as damage to infrastructure.”

By Sunday, Jan. 25, Accuweather says it knew of “more than 700,000 power outages [along] the path of the winter storm, spanning from New Mexico and Texas through the South into the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.”

“People may be stuck at home for days without power and heat during the coldest weather we’ve seen so far this winter. Icy and snow-covered roads are making it very difficult for utility crews and emergency responders to respond to calls for help,” says AccuWeather meteorologist Brandon Buckingham.

Those same road conditions have produced numerous waste and recycling collection and postponement and facility closure announcements throughout the U.S.

The government of Prince George’s County, Maryland, announced on Sunday that several of its waste and recycling facilities will remain closed on Monday, including the Brown Station Road Sanitary Landfill, the Prince George’s County Organics Composting Facility and the Prince George’s County Materials Recycling Facility (MRF).

In the nearby District of Columbia, that city’s government declared a snow emergency on Sunday.  “There will be no trash, recycling and food waste collection on Monday, Jan. 26, and residents may experience delays throughout the week due to the amount of ice and snow in some alleys,” reads part of a statement issued by the city.

Farther west, the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO), which serves Columbus and surrounding cities, announced that all SWACO facilities will be closed on Monday, including its landfill, transfer stations and recycling drop-off center.

The generation and pickup of commercially generated scrap materials may likewise be interrupted in much of the U.S., with bad weather affecting construction and demolition activity and trucking services.

While the price of copper and aluminum is set on global exchanges and may not respond to a regional weather event, winter storms in the U.S. have been known to influence prices in the recycled steel and recovered paper markets.

The interruption in recycled steel generation and collection comes late in the month, just as many deliveries to mills are being made and when buyers and sellers begin negotiating the following month’s prices.

Prices for old corrugated containers (OCC) may not be affected by a brief winter storm, but they can respond to a series of disruptive storms or an ongoing stretch of bad weather.