An NC city joins others in ending curbside recycling pickup as prices rise

Mount Holly City Manager Jonathan Blanton said he felt shocked when he received a contract proposal that would almost double recycling fees for people in the small Gaston County city.

The city had been going back and forth with its service provider, WastePro, to sign a new contract that would begin in July.

But about a week before Mount Holly’s contract with the company was set to expire, the city received the new one, leaving them with a choice: It could pause its pickup recycling or make residents pay more — a decision that other cities in Gaston County have faced in recent years.

“I felt confident and the council felt confident we’d be able to negotiate a recycling-only contract with our service provider,” Blanton said. “But none of us foresaw there would be the 87% increase that the recycling company was going to be proposing.”

So Mount Holly temporarily suspended the program July 1 to explore other options. Other cities, such as Gastonia and Bessemer City, have already canceled their programs, citing similar reasons.

Both those cities require residents to take recycling to a center in Gaston County where residents sort through items before handing them over.

That has helped reduce some costs associated with contamination in recycling, but there’s still concern among residents and officials about whether getting rid of a curbside service is the best option.

Caroline Conklin-Ortiz of Mount Holly said the change surprised and disappointed her. Curbside pickup makes recycling “convenient and easy,” she said.

She and her family have always recycled and she said it can be hard to get to the center with work and other responsibilities.

“Having the curbside option was just really nice to me, that is a lot more accessible for us,” Conklin-Ortiz said. “It’s just going to be more of a headache.”

An industry change

The more contamination recycling services find, the more a company increases the recycling fee for residents.

WastePro’s proposed contract with Mount Holly would have increased the monthly household curbside fee from from $5.18 to $9.71 per month. The proposed increase was a result of recycling being less profitable due to “contamination in the industry,” the city of Mount Holly said in a press release.

The problem stems from a lack of recycling education, said Becca Hurd, Gaston County’s recycling coordinator.

Without knowing what’s accepted, residents sometimes throw materials into their curbside bins that can make the rest unusable. And when there’s contamination, companies that collect recycling have to either dedicate more workers to sorting or have to throw out items they would sell.

Hurd said the rules for what can be recycled sometimes change, forcing the county to have to re-educate as well. But that’s where not having a pickup recycling program helps, she said. Residents are able to learn on their own by bringing their materials and sorting them.

“When people look at a bin, they think, ‘Oh, I really think this can be recycled,’” Hurd said. “They hope or wish that it can be recycled, and unless they get that feedback, then we get a lot of contamination.”

Hurd said people in Gaston County have still been motivated to recycle without the convenience of curbside pickup. She said she thinks more people invest time to recycle properly when they come to the centers.

“If they look in the bin, and they don’t see the thing that they’re about to put in, it makes them stop and go, ‘Oh wait. Can I recycle this?” Hurd said.

Curbside pickup is more convenient

The biggest advantage to curbside pickup for most residents is the time.

It takes time to load recycling into a car. It takes time to drive to a facility. And it takes time to then sort everything once there.

When Mount Holly announced it would be temporarily stopping its service on Facebook , more than 200 comments appeared under the post. Several residents said they worried about how the decision could affect sustainable practices, while others said they would have been fine with paying a higher fee.

Another block for residents can be transportation. Hurd said Gaston County is still working on how it can help people who don’t have a car or who are not able to leave the house. There’s many logistical problems when people don’t have a curbside option, she said.

For now, she encourages residents to lend a helping hand to those around them who can’t go to a center.

Other residents of Mount Holly said they wished they could have given their opinion before the curbside recycling was temporarily taken away. David Shirley, 36, said he felt like residents were given no warning and was in disbelief that the City Council had decided so quickly.

“It would just be nice to get more information and more understanding on how they reached that decision,” Shirley said. “Environmental governance is a huge, huge issue now.”

Mount Holly, Gaston County leaders open to feedback

Mount Holly leaders are still unsure if they are going to resume the pickup program, Blanton said.

The city is having to consider all options before moving forward and won’t reach a decision for a few months. Until then, people in Mount Holly have been told to hang onto their blue bins and to take their recycling to Gaston County’s centers.

Hurd, the county’s recycling coordinator, also said she hopes residents will speak up about any problems, so government officials can look at providing other services.

For Mount Holly, the plan is to look for other recycling providers that would not have as high of a cost for residents. Blanton said the city could change its mind and return to curbside pickup.

“It may be that the council moves in the direction of canceling the program in a few months, but right now that’s not where we are,” Blanton said.

Recycling locations

Gaston County has seven recycling locations, which are all open Monday through Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Only certain ones are open on Sunday. For more information on what can and can’t be recycled at each location, go to Gaston County’s website.

• Crowders Creek , 1120 CP Groves Road, Gastonia. Open on Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• Duke Street Recycling Center , 3100 Duke St., Gastonia. Closed on Sundays
• Farmer’s Market Recycling Center , 410 E. Long Ave., Gastonia. Closed on Sundays
• Hardin Recycling Center , 3155 Philadelphia Church Road, Dallas, NC. Open on Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• New Hope Recycling Center , 235 Lake Wylie Road, Belmont. Open on Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• Riverbend Recycling Center , 146 Mountain Island Road, Mount Holly. Open on Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• Tryon Recycling Center , 2755 Tryon Courthouse Road/Highway 274, Bessemer City. Open on Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.