Recycling program growing, but has a way to go

About two and a half years ago, Carl Nunley was chosen to manage the city’s new Recycling and Sustainability Center after 11 years at the Pine Grove Landfill across the street. He says keeping tons of refuse out of the landfill is a much more rewarding job than putting tons into it.

“We put men on the moon back in the 1960s,” Nunley said. “Now, 50 years later, we’re still burying garbage like the cavemen.”

But the city is burying less and less of it, Nunley said. In April alone, the recycling center collected 1,500 tons of material that would have otherwise been buried at the landfill. To put that in context, prior to opening the center in December of 2013, the city’s old center on Victory Drive processed just 2,000 tons for all of the previous year.

The city sells the recycled paper, plastic and metals and gets about $550,000 a year, according to Public Works Director Pat Biegler. While that doesn’t cover the $1.15 million it costs to operate the plant, as recycling numbers grow, it will get closer and closer.

But, Biegler pointed out, the market for recycled goods is volatile.

“The price that we get for materials has gone down,” Biegler said. “It’s down to about $70 a ton. A couple of years ago we were getting $165 a ton. It’s a market situation, which is very volatile. For plastics and some other things, it’s tied to petroleum prices.”

And the city no longer recycles glass, Biegler said, and explained that several factors went into the decision to stop. Recycling glass was very time consuming because it had to be separated from the other refuse by hand. It also took a lot of time and manpower to collect. She said the city saves the equivalent of three trucks and drivers by not picking up glass.

Finally, the market for recycled glass has dried up, Biegler said. “It got to the point that, whereas the city used to sell the glass, as it sells other recycled material, there was no one willing to take the glass at all,” she said.

But revenue aside, the real financial benefit of increased recycling is adding lifespan to the landfill, Biegler said. When she came to Columbus five years ago, the expected lifespan of the landfill was 27 years. If nothing had been done, that lifespan would have been down to 22 years, she said. Instead, through increased recycling and much improved compaction technology at the landfill, the lifespan is up beyond 34 years now.

“I’m looking to approach 40 — maybe 50 — years, but we’ll have to see, because there’s a higher volume this year,” Biegler said.

The importance of extending the lifespan is that it gives the city more time to prepare itself for the expenses not only of eventually closing the landfill, but handling federally mandated post-closure expenses, Biegler said.

Pine Grove is permitted for six cells, or specific areas for dumping. The city is currently using cell number four, and still has “a little room left” in the first three, Biegler said. The cost of preparing cells number five and six will be about $10 million, and the closure and post-closure expenses are expected to be about $25 million.

“If we can make it last 50 more years, that would be great,” Biegler said. “Basically what you do is spread out the $10 million for the construction costs and you spread out the $25 million for closure/post-closure. Spreading that out over 50 years is a whole lot better than spreading it out over 20 years.”

But the city is going to have to start setting that money aside, which it hasn’t been doing lately under intensely tight budgets.

“I’ve mentioned that to them,” Biegler said.

The city must also prepare and plan for what to do when Pine Grove finally does have to shut down, Biegler said.

“Before the city completely fills this landfill, it will have to determine what kinds of alternatives might be available. Whether we want to try to find land and permit another landfill,” Biegler said. “Another option would be to take it out-of-county and pay whatever tipping fee the other county would charge. Any of the alternatives are going to be very pricey.”

This story was originally published June 16, 2016 at 6:34 PM with the headline "Recycling program growing, but has a way to go."