BRISTOL — Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. Or maybe just Reduce-Reuse.
The world market for recyclable products has collapsed, taking away the financial incentive for keeping certain material out of the landfills. In fact, it is now more costly to recycle than it is to just toss that material in with the garbage.
That was the unpleasant information that Dave Allen of Casella Waste Systems brought to the Bristol Board of Selectmen on April 5.
Allen said it costs his company $30 per ton in trucking costs to get material to the recycling center in Boston, and another $90 per ton to sort it. The offsetting revenue is $3 per ton, for a net loss of $117.
“That’s not a good business model,” he said.
Starting next month, Casella will be charging the town the difference between the company’s cost and what it recovers on the commodity market. At 300 tons of recyclables a year, that is more than $3,000 in increased costs for the town.
If the market should turn around, Allen said his company would split the profit with the town out of fairness, but he doesn’t see that happening anytime in the near future.
By way of contrast, the town’s cost to haul away solid waste is $65 per ton, making the abandonment of recycling an appealing option from a financial standpoint.
Mark Bucklin, the public works superintendent, said he would like to continue recycling for now because it would be difficult to get people to start recycling again if they were to get out of the habit now.
A temporary step would be to remove glass from the recycling material. Glass has no market value at the moment, and separating it out would reduce the tonnage by 20 percent, Allen said.
Bucklin said he could store the glass and crush it, and attempt to find someone to take the crushed material. Glass can be reused in tile for landscaping and made into aggregate for road bases.
Rick Alpers, chair of the selectmen, suggested a trial period of separating out the glass and seeing what the costs are. If the cost were to remain high long-term, it might make sense to cease recycling and simply haul everything to a landfill, he said.
Town Administrator Nik Coates had checked with other recyclers, and found they were in the same situation as Casella, so it makes no sense to change haulers, he said.
Budget
During an afternoon work session prior to the regular meeting, selectmen had adjusted the town’s operating budget to meet the new figure that voters adopted at town meeting. Faced with a long warrant carrying the potential impact of hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional spending, voters had limited the increase in the 2018 operating budget to 4.4 percent above last year’s cost of running the town.
The difference between the adopted budget and the one the budget committee had proposed was $370,450. Alpers said the department heads had done an outstanding job locating ways to reduce their spending to meet the lower appropriation, and the selectmen made some other adjustments during their workshop.
Alpers said the selectmen preserved all town employees’ jobs and the money to award merit increases in compensation, instead cutting out some new equipment purchases, cutting back on cemetery maintenance and town beach attendants’ hours, eliminating some funding for the summer concert series, and reducing the town’s support to nonprofit agencies such as the Newfound Area Nursing Association.
He said the town administrator and department heads will be closely monitoring the spending this year, and, if they can save additional money, some of the spending might be restored.
During the public comment period, Tom Keegan chastised those who proposed the budget amendments.
“We shouldn’t have to cut funding for seniors and NANA,” he said. “These cuts shouldn’t have been snuck through at the last meeting. It just isn’t right.”
Without naming budget committee member John Sellers, Keegan said, “If you sit on a committee, you should stick with the committee.”
He also didn’t name former selectman Paul Manganiello, but said, “Taking money from capital reserves isn’t right, either.”
He concluded by saying, “We better consider the people we vote in and what they really stand for.”
Manganiello, who was in the audience, stood to make it clear, “That was not the selectmen’s decision to reduce the capital reserve budget. That was my going rogue. I wanted to support the purchase of the building [for a new town hall], and I hope you’ll still use that money for this purpose.”
Sellers defended his motion to reduce the proposed budget, pointing out that it was still an increase over last year’s spending. He noted that his amendment had the support of the majority of the voters who attended the town meeting.
Keegan complained that Sellers’ motion was based on actual spending figures, rather than on last year’s budget — a perennial subject of debate between fiscal conservatives and those with a more liberal view on spending.
Conservatives will point out that a budget is a guess about what it will take to operate, while looking at the actual spending shows the real cost. Liberals will point out that staff vacancies, delayed projects, and other unforeseen circumstances may keep a town from spending the whole amount budgeted, and that unexpected costs may come up during the year, so having extra money available will allow for those situations.
When Sellers started to respond, Alpers shouted him down and quickly moved to end the public comment period.
9 April 2018
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