Recycling changes addressed during Mt. Lebanon meeting
In case you haven’t heard, glass no longer will be accepted for recycling in South Hills municipalities going into 2019.
During the Mt. Lebanon Commission’s Nov. 13 discussion session, Lou Gorski, executive director of the South Hills Area Council of Governments, gave a detailed presentation addressing the change.
“It is not a very desirable situation,” he said, “and the bottom line is, it’s going to be a very intense public education campaign to make sure that the people understand not only what they have to do but why they’re doing it.”
SHACOG, which coordinates and administers programs of regional interest that benefit member municipalities, started work in January 2017 on bid specifications for new waste collection contracts, starting in 2020, for 19 communities representing almost 100,000 households and some 262,000 residents.
During the process of preparing the specifications, those involved learned about potential issues with recycled materials, Gorski explained. And just prior to advertising for bids, news came out that China, which had been accepting about half of the world’s recyclables, suspended the importation of such materials.
“When it was first released,” Gorski said about the bid specifications, “the recyclable list that we currently had was intact, meaning that glass was still among the selected items for recycling.”
That changed, though, following meetings with potential bidders.
“In order to guarantee that bids would be received, because that was the implied threat that was put forth from the industry, plastics would be limited and glass would be removed as a recyclable item,” Gorski said.
From the industry’s standpoint, glass has become a losing proposition financially.
“It’s a low-value commodity item,” Gorski explained. “It breaks and causes problems in sorting equipment. It contaminates the other products, and it has very limited market.
“Not only is there no value for glass,” he continued, “it costs the industry, at least locally, $20 a ton to get rid of it. So there is a significant impact on the revenue stream.”
Plastic also presents issues.
“Scrap plastic has increased from 2 million metric tons in 1950 to 322 million tons in 2015, the last date for which all the statistics are available,” Gorski said. “Plastic, itself, is very difficult to recycle, and when it is recycled, most of it doesn’t get recycled more than twice.”
Mt. Lebanon and other municipalities continue to investigate means by which glass can be recycled in the future. Residents also have been looking into the matter, including Kathy Hrabovsky, sustainability manager for the Allegheny County Sustainability Office and a former member of the Mt. Lebanon Environmental Sustainability Board.
“I’ve been in conversation with at least two people in the area who might be willing to take up a hauling initiative,” she said during the citizens’ comments portion of the Mt. Lebanon Commission’s regular meeting, mentioning a potential cooperative effort with Upper St. Clair.
“Not to differ with our SHACOG representative greatly, but there are organizations in our area that do have a market for glass, and they’re willing to take the volume,” she asserted. “If we can find a way to source separate it, then there’s an opportunity to probably break even.”