Is It Worth It?

Is it worth it?

I was glad when the City of El Paso began a glass recycling pilot project but take a look at these figures:

A total of 218.5 cubic yards of glass have been crushed or 31.14 tons. The cost for processing that glass is $7,478 to date or $1,496 per month.

However, the amount saved by crushing the glass rather than taking it to the landfill has only been $3,496 or $699/month. That comes out to a total loss so far of $3,982 to date or $796 per month. 

In short the City is subsidizing the crushed glass to the tune of almost $800 per month.

On the other hand, people have been using the glass for mulch although that number has dropped to zero over the last month. The only way that the pilot can be successful is for the City to charge a fee for the glass cullet or find a paying customer. Only questions, of course, are whether El Pasoans will pay a fee and whether the fee can be reasonable enough. With sand 10,000 feet deep in some areas of the city, one has to wonder if glass recycling in El Paso is worth it. The City is sure to close the project after the trial year if it continues to lose $9,600 per year.

CEMEX was interested in taking the glass but they wanted more tonnage than the crusher produces. (Crushed glass in cement sparkles and, of course, costs the manufacturer less especially if they are getting the glass for free.) If a smaller cement company would buy the crusher from the City, then the City might be able to supply the recycled glass to them - again for a fee perhaps. 

Friedman, the company that takes El Paso blue bin recyclables, has noticed more glass in those blue bins since the crusher program began. That means that sorting recyclables is more expensive. It seems that El Pasoans know about the glass recycling program; they just don't know that it is a separate recycling process from the blue bin. 

Can We Afford to Recycle?

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Importing garbage for energy is good business for Sweden from Sweden on Vimeo.

Ellen Smyth, the Director of our city's Environmental Services, sent me a link to a very provacative article: American recycling is stalling, and the big blue bin is one reason why. It is well worth taking time to read (and it won't take but a few minutes). First bottom line: prices for recycled goods have been dropping which means that the business of recycling is becoming less profitable. Second bottom line: guess who pays to make up the difference?

I've often wondered why El Paso and other municipalities don't use the practice of cities in the Seattle (King County), Washington area. People get three small bins: one for paper, one for plastics and metals and one for glass. On pick-up day the bins are placed curbside and are distributed in three different compartments of the collection truck. Nevertheless, there are are still those falling commodity prices.

It isn't all bad as the article explains. There are some silver linings. But shouldn't we ask ourselves whether we should be recycling differently or recycling less items.

If you haven't visited the City of El Paso curbside recycling pages, please do so by starting HERE and following the links. It clearly tells us what we can and cannot recycle and has some helpful videos.

It's time to have a serious debate about garbage to energy. The Swedish program is exemplary. (Want to talk about alternative sources of energy? Here you go.) 



Is garbage to energy green? In Sweden there really is no debate and their process scrubs down emissions to more than meet standards.

Finally, are there ways that we can reuse or repurpose some of the items that we recycle? You can get creative. There are plenty of suggestions such as HERE and HERE. (Just Google "reusing recyclables".) 

We can even build using recyclables. (Now Google "building with recyclables".) I liked Build Your House From Recycled Materials from Mother Earth News. Can you imagine the pushback if we attempted to change building codes to allow recyclables? There would be much screaming and moaning and gnashing of teeth. 

However, it it time to start thinking outside of the cardboard box.


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Yard Waste in El Paso

One of the best programs that the City of El Paso Department of Environmental Services offers is chipping and mulching Christmas trees. Residents have until January 10 to take their trees (less ornaments, lights and tinsel) to one of the City's collection stations. From there the trees go to the Hondo Pass or Atlantic station where they are chipped and turned into mulch. El Pasoans are welcome to come and get the mulch for free.

I asked Ellen Smyth, the head of Environmental Services, what the City does with other yard waste that it collects at the stations. She said that El Paso doesn't have "any green waste program at this time except for the Christmas trees."

Other cities do have such programs. San Diego collects yard waste and converts it to wood chips, mulch and compost. Mulch and self-loaded compost are free. Norman, Oklahoma operates a composting facility year-round.

Denver not only gives away mulch, it teaches residences how to compost in return for these "Master Composters" volunteering to teach others about composting. The City of Denver web site also has an excellent page on the how-to of composting.