Councillor Randy Roppel; Kincardine’s representative on the Bruce Area Solid Waste Recycling Association says sharp declines in the values of metals and plastics have led to seriously declined revenues for the organization.
Some plastics are only bringing in one cent per pound. The value of box board has gone to zero dollars per tonne.
The situation is expected to continue through 2009.
The association has over 700 thousand dollars in its reserves, but over 200 thousand of that will go towards vehicle replacements next year.
The recycling facility is also running at capacity and will need to expand in future years.
Roppel says the only option is for Bruce Area Solid Waste Recycling to increase the amount of money per household it gets from municipalities to provide service.
That amount was at a high of over 22 dollars in 1992, it hit a low over just over 10 dollars in 1996, and climbed to over 17 this year.
The association doesn’t want to store too much of the waste there is no market for because of fire and health hazards.
Roppel says even with the increase, the cost of recycling to the municipality and it’s ratepayers will still be cheap.
He insists Kincardine taxpayers will still be getting a bargain.
Councillor Ron Hewitt agrees.
He says the recycling program needs to stay strong and the material is still better off being recycled than ending up in landfills.
Hewitt says the downturn in the market is temporary and thinks in a year or two, there will be lots of opportunity for local municipalities to sell recyclable material.
The Bruce Area Solid Waste Recycling Association will discuss it’s increased costs to municipalities when it meets on January 15th. It will become clearer then how much more recycling will cost taxpayers in the year ahead.
