By Angela Poe, senior program manager for Lexington’s Department of Environmental Quality and Public Works
Workers at the Lexington Recycle Center sort through items from curbside bins and recycling dumpsters collected throughout central Kentucky. Photo by Paul Christopher
By now, you’ve probably heard the news: Lexington has temporarily suspended paper recycling.
I know people are disappointed, maybe even frustrated. Those of us who work in the city’s Department of Environmental Quality and Public Works get it. We’d much rather be recycling paper than sending it to the landfill.
We continue to get questions, which is understandable. Let me see if I can help.
How’d we get here? The Lexington Recycle Center doesn’t actually recycle anything. It’s a sorting center. The technical name is the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF). The city and private haulers collect recyclables from curbside bins and recycling dumpsters throughout Central Kentucky. Then they transport the material to the Lexington Recycle Center.
The trucks empty their loads in a huge room called the tipping floor. A front loader pushes the material onto a conveyer belt and the sorting process begins. People and machines are both part of the sorting process.
Once the material is sorted, it is baled and sent to an appropriate industry that takes the sorted material and turns it into something new. In order for something to be recycled, someone has to be willing to take it from us after it is sorted and baled. This is the step where we have our paper problem.
There aren’t mills that want enough of our paper for us to recycle all that comes into the Recycle Center. There is too much paper in the market that needs to be processed, and the mills can’t keep up.
Why is there too much paper now? A lot of recycling used to go to China, but several years ago, China started tightening its standards for what it will accept. The current standards are so high (99.5% of a bale of paper has to be paper) that it’s nearly impossible for anyone to meet them. That means a lot of material that used to be shipped out of the country is now trying to find a home in the domestic market.
While the Lexington Recycle Center didn’t send its material to China, the regional mills where we have historically sent our paper for recycling – in places like Indiana and Ohio – now have access to a lot more paper…more than they can feasibly process.
The good news is that new mills are opening and existing mills are expanding to increase their capacity. That is why the suspension is temporary. Lexington is also exploring some other uses for the paper, like agricultural applications or waste to energy. We want to end the suspension as soon as we can, but we aren’t sure when that will be. It’s a market problem, and we don’t have control over the markets. All we can do is explore as many avenues as possible to increase the probability of finding a long-term solution as soon as possible.
If it’s temporary, why suspend paper recycling collection at all? Since we can’t recycle paper at this time, it is better both environmentally and economically if you send it directly to the landfill. Environmentally, sending it straight to the landfill keeps it from being transported twice. Economically, transportation comes into play again. Sorting at the curb also saves time and resources at the Recycle Center.
The city also suspended paper recycling for transparency reasons. If we pick up recycling from you, we know you expect us to recycle it – not throw it away.
Don’t recyclables end up at the landfill all the time? No. There are three times material coming into the Recycle Center ends up at the landfill.
First, if you send us unwanted materials, we throw them away. “Wishcycling” is not helpful. A recycle symbol on the item does not necessarily mean it is recyclable in Central Kentucky. Unwanted materials can damage equipment and put employees at risk.
At this time, we are only accepting dry cardboard (yes, corrugated cardboard, like moving and shipping boxes, is still acceptable during the paper suspension), aluminum and steel cans, glass bottles and jars and plastic bottles and jugs. Eventually, we’ll add paper back to that list. If an item isn’t on the acceptable list, it belongs in the trash. If you are unsure, throw it away or ask us.
Second, if the Recycle Center is down and we’ve run out of room for trucks to unload, we have to divert material to the landfill. In the fall of 2018, the city adopted a policy of telling the public when this happens.
Third, if we have sorted material and there’s nowhere to send it, we store it in hopes of finding an outlet. If we can’t find an outlet and/or run out of room for storing it, it is sent to the landfill. This is the position we are in with paper.
Is glass next? Glass presents a different issue than paper does. City staff and the council subcommittee on recycling are exploring options for glass in hopes of identifying a way forward that will have better environmental and economic outcomes. The current system doesn’t perform well by either measure.
What can I do to help this issue? Remember to reduce, then reuse, then recycle. Reduction has the greatest environmental benefit. You can stop unwanted catalogs at catalogchoice.org, and we’ve outlined are other reduction tips on the city website listed below.
Recycle properly. Twenty-five to 30% of material that comes to the Recycle Center is unwanted material. That’s a waste of time and resources for the center to have to sort that much trash. Plus, many of those items can damage the equipment or pose a risk to employees, further harming the recycling program.
Do you have more questions? Additional information and the latest updates can be found at www.LexingtonKY.gov/RecycleUpdates. Live Green Lexington, the outreach arm for the Department of Environmental Quality and Public Works, is on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (@LiveGreenLex). There’s a Lexington Trash Talk Facebook group you can visit or join, or you can call the friendly staff at LexCall at 311 or (859) 425-2255 during regular business hours.
Alternative Options for Newspaper Recycling
Seedleaf, a local nonprofit focused on reducing food waste, has added “shredded newspaper” to the list of materials it will collect and reuse as part of its new “compost carpool” program. The program is designed to provide an outlet for residents who are invested in composting food scraps to help eliminate waste. Participants in the program pay a small weekly or monthly fee and, in return, Seedleaf provides a five-gallon bucket for collecting common food waste (coffee grounds; fruit and vegetable peels, rinds, and trimmings; and pre-consumer organic waste) as well as shredded newspaper; representatives from the organization will pick up the compost from residents’ homes on a weekly basis and turn the materials into compost which will be used in one of its 13 community gardens.
For more information on the program, visit www.seedleaf.org/compost-carpool.