Lancaster County recycling programs are continuing as usual, despite an unexpected and dramatic plunge in the value of used glass, aluminum, plastic, newspaper and cardboard.

Though long hailed as the "green" thing to do, community recycling has been discontinued in some parts of the United States, due to the unprecedented drop in the price of recyclables.

As the global economy tanks, residents have been urged to hoard recyclables and some municipalities have started taking them to landfills since it costs more to collect them than to sell them.

Frackville, in Schuylkill County, has suspended its recycling program and is taking the material to a dump.

But here in Lancaster County, 70 percent of the population is required by state law to have curbside recycling. And a New Era survey of 15 of the 23 townships and boroughs here that aren't required to have recycling, but do, found none dropping programs.

"To discontinue our recycling program would be a huge step backwards," says Vicki Carroll, recycling coordinator for Mount Joy Township, one of those that provides non-mandated curbside recycling with trash collection.

Adds a Caernarvon Township official, "We will continue to require recycling within our township. The reasons for recycling should not hinge on the costs but the environment."

A prolonged slump in the value of recyclables could force haulers here to raise prices to cover costs when they renegotiate contracts with municipalities or decide to hike trash bills for residents.

"It could cost more to do the right thing," Ginger Good, office manager of Akron-based Good's Disposal Service, said this morning.

But she was quick to predict that won't be necessary and thinks the value of recyclables will rebound in about six months as the worldwide economy improves.

"We're confident it's a cycle and it's just a little longer cycle," said Good.

Good's is the largest independent trash hauler in Lancaster County, serving residents in 15 townships in the northern part of the county. It collects and processes about 450 tons of recyclables a month

Nonprofit groups, such as the Boy Scouts and churches, are the ones suffering during the recycling bust, Good said.

Recyclables have long risen and fallen in value in cycles. But the latest downturn, after peak prices only this summer, has hit recycling programs hard.

Across the country, recycling brokers are storing recyclables, including scrap metal, because they can't find a buyer or are unwilling to sell at rock-bottom prices.

But arrangements where residents are required to pay for recycling as part of their trash bills will be better buffered from drops in recyclable value, notes Tom Adams, recycling manager for the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority.

"Programs like the ones here in Lancaster County that the residents are paying for the service are going to weather the storm of the cyclical commodity values better than those that are built around profit-sharing between the municipality and the hauler or processor," he said.


Staff writer Ad Crable can be reached at acrable@LNPnews.com or 481-6029.