Economics and Convenience

Most people do not know that curbside recycling costs money. While most items in your bin are worth some money, sadly cities do not usually collect enough of the valuable ones to cover the costs of offering the program. But that can change… with your help.

While funding curbside programs is handled and financed in many different ways, depending on the community, in most cases, tax dollars or trash bills cover the cost to the city in part.

Why the cost? The bottom line is that it costs money to pay haulers to come to your house every week or every-other-week to pick up your recyclables. And it costs money for those materials to be transported to a materials recovery facility (or MRF) for them to process it. And it costs money to sort through the recyclables to pull out items that should not be there and make sure the items that really can and should be recycled end up going where they need to go.

When cost outweighs a return many cities are forced to re-examine why they are offering the program. If you don’t want this to happen in your community, or if you want to do your part to help the city collect more, it is simple:

1. First, always recycle your valuable materials such as aluminum cans and paper. These materials are worth money to the city and every time you recycle a can or a newspaper, you are helping offset costs. The more you recycle, the less the program costs the city!
2. Find out what other materials are accepted in your city and recycle them often. As each community is unique, you will need to ask if they accept magazines, for example. Our green program locator box at the top of each page can help.
3. Next, make sure all of your family and friends are also recycling, both when they are visiting you and when they are at their own homes.
4. Make sure all of the people that move in to your neighborhood know about the curbside program and how they can participate.
5. Place your bins on the street on time, every time so that your house is not missed.
6. Speak out! Let the program know your thoughts. How can they improve? How can they get more residents involved?

From a community perspective, there are simple things you can do today to help make your program more cost effective. Increasing participation is a surefire way to increase collections, and hopefully, increase the amount of valuable materials in your recycling stream. If you share in the revenue with your MRF, you will quickly see the benefit. If you do not, consider adding this to your contract when it is re-negotiated.

For more ideas, visit the Curbside Partnership Web site.