More municipalities around Charlotte canceling curbside recycling as ‘misfit’ items worsens

CHARLOTTE, N.C. ( QUEEN CITY NEWS ) — Inside Mecklenburg County’s recycling facility, known as MRF, 20 tons of our waste get sorted every hour.

When Queen City News visited the facility a year ago, we discovered more than 20 percent of the garbage that comes in isn’t actually recyclable. The misfits of plastic bags and garbage costs the county $1.9 million a year. So are residents getting better at recycling?

“I wish I could say yes,” said Jeff Smithberger, Solid Waste director for Mecklenburg County, “But unfortunately, they’ve gotten just a little bit worse. We’re still about the same amount of money that we spend for those misfit items.”

That cost of recycling is causing other municipalities to cancel their curbside recycling service altogether. Gastonia, Shelby, Kings Mountain, Bessemer City, Mount Holly and most recently York, South Carolina , have all ended the program.

Mount Holly was looking at an 87% increase for residential customers had the city continued curbside pickup, meaning the average person would pay $9.71 a month instead of $5.18. They blame a change in China’s acceptance of our recycling for the increase.

“China has been putting those strict regulations on because, basically, they were getting our trash,” said Amy Aussieker, executive director at Envision Charlotte. “They weren’t getting our recyclables. They were getting a bunch of junk. We need to do better about what we put in our recycling bin and not put stuff that shouldn’t go in there.”

Aussieker has made sustainability her mission. Her organization hosts weekly tours and school field trips to educate people on the do’s and don’ts.

“We walk over to the sign that shows you exactly what you can curbside recycle, and people are like,” she said as she bowed her head. “I’m like, ‘I see the look of shame. You’re not alone.’ About 50 percent of the people who come here go, ‘You can only recycle plastic that has a neck?’ Yes!” she exclaimed.

In York, only 30% of their residential customers recycle; officials say that’s roughly 1,300 people. They were also at least 50% dependent on their neighbor to the north.

“We were a partner with Clover, South Carolina,” said York Public Works Director Chris Wallace, “and Clover decided to get out of it, and it left the total cost on our taxpayers.”

It would have been a $75,000 increase. On Monday, the city announced its program was ending at the end of September.

“I hope we’re not reversing course,” Smithberger said in response to the growing list of towns and cities canceling curbside service. “Each one of the jurisdictions has to make their own call on what they do.”

The space at landfills is finite. Mecklenburg County is making a big investment in another sorting facility to better automate the process so they’re not dependent on the private sector to sort and sell their materials.

In the meantime, those passionate about reducing, reusing, and recycling are hoping creative minds can come up with the next solution.

“I’m waiting for the big innovation in recycling,” Aussieker said. “I think it’s broken, obviously, with all these cities not recycling. I think there needs to be a radical change.”

Mecklenburg County’s new recycling facility will be up and running in about eight-to-10 months to provide some aid to the MRF. Smithberger says it will be more efficient with automated sorting. It’s their hope that it will reduce their costs, which are mostly embedded in labor.

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