SOURCE-SEPARATION RECYCLING PROGRAMS

4.3 Mixed Waste Processing Options

Section 4.2 discusses recycling programs that are based on the separate collection of recyclable materials (i.e., separate from garbage), which is the method currently used in Jefferson County. Section 4.3 discusses alternative recycling programs that are based on processing garbage to remove the recyclable materials after collection.

4.2 SOURCE-SEPARATION RECYCLING PROGRAMS

4.2.1 Existing Conditions

Recycling Methods

Overview: Currently, there is only one buy-back center in Jefferson County and only one recycling processing center, both located at the Jefferson County Waste Management Facility (JCWMF) near the City of Port Townsend. Recyclable materials are accepted at the JCWMF and at the Quilcene Drop Box Site, both of which are staffed during open hours. There is a network of unstaffed recycling drop-off containers around the County. Used oil and antifreeze are accepted at several locations in the City and County, including the JCWMF and Quilcene site. Curbside recycling is available in the City of Port Townsend and in most of the unincorporated areas of the County. Commercial recycling services are available for most of the businesses in east Jefferson County. Drop-Off and Buy-Back Programs: Unstaffed recycling containers are located in most of the larger communities throughout the County, and are on State, County, City or private property depending on the community. The exact locations of these containers may be changed on short notice, which has happened on several occasions recently for containers on private property, usually due to litter problems. In addition, some of the locations have only one container for a specific type of material (such as cardboard) while others are designed to be more of a “full-service” drop-off site.

Recycling containers available to the public are maintained primarily by the County’s recycling contractor. Most of the containers maintained by the recycling contractor are owned by the County. Other containers provided by the City’s solid waste contractor or one of the franchise haulers to businesses and other agencies are generally not available to the public.

Curbside Programs: The City of Port Townsend has had curbside recycling since 1993. In the unincorporated part of the County, residents and businesses have the option of subscribing to recycling services provided by one of the franchise haulers, whether they are garbage collection customers or not.

collected every other week. The curbside program is “mandatory” in that all customers pay for it through their garbage collection rates, whether or not they use the service. The lowest garbage collection fee is available only to residents who also sign up for the recycling program. In the City of Port Townsend, the average monthly setout rate in 1998 was 57.6 tons for the curbside recycling program. Additional information about Port Townsend’s program can be found in the Port

Townsend Waste Reduction and Recycling Plan (see Appendix D).

Multi-Family Recycling: Recycling services to multi-family units (apartments) are generally provided only in Port Townsend, where the contract hauler is required to provide such services upon request. Several apartment buildings currently participate in the recycling program. Commercial Recycling Programs: Commercial recycling services are provided by the recycling contractor, the City’s solid waste contractor, the franchise haulers and other recycling service companies, often for a fee. The recycling contractor has operated limited collection routes for office paper and cardboard, and also provides a document shredding/recycling service.

Other materials recycled in Jefferson County by private companies, either as a special service or through drop-off centers in and near the County, include metals and grease.

School Programs: Most of the schools in the County have recycling programs. Most of the schools use bags or other containers for collecting materials in the classrooms and offices, with maintenance staff emptying these into central containers. This system is used by the Brinnon, Quilcene and Grant Street Schools. Other schools use recycling monitors, recycling club members, or have students take turns. One school (Mountain View) has “super recyclers” that score the classes each week for their recycling performance and the winning class is rewarded with a party. Other Programs: Last but not least, litter cleanup crews and other special cleanup events also endeavor to recycle a portion of the materials they pick up.

Processing: Materials collected through the recycling containers and curbside/commercial collections are primarily brought to the Jefferson County Recycle Center for processing and

marketing. The Recycle Center is located at the Jefferson County Waste Management Facility near the City of Port Townsend, and this also serves as a recycling drop-off site for a wide variety of materials. Materials currently handled by the Recycle Center (as of mid-2000) include aluminum cans and foil, corrugated cardboard, glass bottles (brown and clear bottles and containers only, no green bottles are accepted), newspaper, mixed paper, office paper, plastic bottles (PET bottles and translucent HDPE milk and water bottles), and tin cans. The Recycle Center also acts as a buy- back center for aluminum cans and accepts other aluminum products without payment. Additional materials handled by County personnel at the landfill include waste oil, antifreeze, white goods and other ferrous metals. Olympic Disposal transports the recyclable materials they collect either to their facility in Port Angeles or to the Recycle Center for processing. The City’s contractor is required to transport all recyclable materials collected in the City to the Recycle Center.

Urban-Rural Designation

State planning guidelines are designed to recognize differences in the services that can be offered to urban versus rural areas for solid waste services. These differences are based primarily on the ability to conduct cost-effective collections and other services for garbage and recyclable materials. For instance, it is more feasible to conduct cost-effective collections for garbage and for curbside recycling in urban areas than in rural areas because of reduced travel times between stops. A

similar situation exists for commercial services, although in some cases business types and densities do not correlate well to urban population centers, and so a simple comparison of urban versus rural areas can be misleading for evaluating the need for commercial services.

The City of Port Townsend, as the only urban growth area identified at this time by the County’s land use planning (JC 1998), is currently designated to be the only urban service area for this CSWMP. Ecology’s planning guidelines recommend that those areas designated as urban should receive curbside recycling services (which Port Townsend has already implemented), while other areas of the County can be adequately served with drop-off centers at convenient locations. Other urban service areas may be created at a later date, should the County approve additional urban growth areas (see Land Use under Section 2.3.1), and for consistency any new UGAs should also be designated as urban areas for solid waste services.

Market Analysis

The current and future markets for recyclable materials is a key consideration in evaluating the need for additional recycling activities and their cost-effectiveness, but these are difficult to address in a long-range planning document such as this CSWMP. Markets for most recyclable materials constantly fluctuate, thus quickly rendering any market analysis obsolete. These changes are caused by many different factors, including the economy in general, prices of virgin materials and other competing feedstocks, and supply and demand locally and abroad. With these considerations in mind, the data in Table 4.1 provides a baseline status report for the value of the primary

recyclable materials collected in Jefferson County.

The market values shown in Table 4.1 are averages of the values reported by fourteen companies and agencies in the State. The values are intended to be market prices only, and do not include the collection, processing or transportation costs that altogether could exceed the market value. In the case of Jefferson County, these costs are relatively high compared to other areas. On a per-ton or per-household basis, collection costs are higher in rural areas than in urban areas due to the greater distances traveled to collect a load of recyclable materials. Processing costs benefit from

economies of scale, so the relatively small amounts of recyclable materials collected in Jefferson County leads to relatively high processing costs. Transportation costs for Jefferson County are also higher than average due to the distance to markets and the transportation barriers created by the County’s location on the Olympic Peninsula.

A brief discussion of markets is provided below. This analysis is provided by commodity type, although “markets” should not be confused with the “commodities”. A variety of existing and potential markets are possible for each commodity and in some cases recyclable materials compete with each other for a specific market.

Paper: Market forces for the different grades of paper are quite

different in some ways but similar in others. All grades of paper are

affected by the presence or absence of capacity at paper mills for using

recycled paper. This capacity is often dedicated to either recycled

paper or virgin wood chips because of the different processing systems

required for each of these. Since the capacity of a mill is the result

of millions of dollars worth of investments, the capacity to use recycled paper is created or expanded based on cautious projections of demand for

the finished product(s). For grades such as office paper, these

collected for recycling. For other paper grades, such as cardboard, consumer demand is less of an issue than broader economic factors that affect demand for new boxes or that affect prices of competing feedstocks. Locally, cardboard is usually shipped directly to Port Townsend Paper Company and processed into pulp.