Sedona Recycles is getting the word out that in the very near future it may have to add an additional two items to its list of recyclables they can no longer accept.
During the Tuesday, Sept. 14, Sedona City Council meeting, Sedona Recycles Board President Doug Copp updated the council on a dilemma they are currently facing. He felt it was right to keep the council updated on the matter since the city pays a large portion of their operating costs — $203,000 for the current fiscal year.
During its most recent quarterly board meeting on Sept. 3, issues were discussed including a change in materials accepted for recycling by Sedona Recycles. While they are still seeking a vendor to buy the materials, Copp said there’s a strong possibility that they will cease to accept block Styrofoam [XPS] and mixed rigid plastic [MRP].
In a memo to the city, Copp explained that XPS is only accepted at the recycle center, but despite their education efforts, they receive it at all their drop-off sites intermixed with cardboard. When the hauled load of cardboard is compressed in the truck, the XPS breaks up into small pieces that must be manually removed before baling the cardboard.
“At the recycle center, we hand feed XPS into a densifying machine to create dense logs that are palletized. It is a slow, tedious process,” he wrote. “A pallet of XPS logs weighs approximately 800 pounds. In the past we were able to sell XPS for around $100 per ton, at our processing cost of about $2,000 per ton. We have very limited yard space.”
The current 13 pallets of XPS stored in their recycling yard have no prospective buyer.
MRP is a similar problem, he said. It, too, is only accepted at the recycle center, but they receive it at all of their drop-off sites in the plastic mix.
“At the recycle center, MRP must be manually separated from the mix of bottles and cans because it is much too large to go up the small mixed materials sorting conveyor belt,” Copp wrote. “MRP is stored in large cages until we have enough to produce a bale. MRP is hard on our baler because of its size and density. In the past we were able to sell MRP for around $40 per ton. We currently have 25 bales of MRP stored in our yard and no prospective buyer.”
Mixed rigid plastics can include a variety of items such as buckets, crates, totes, trays and other rigid plastics, unlike other pliable plastics like grocery bags and water bottles.
Council said it backed whatever decision Sedona Recycles makes and gave suggestions as to how to get the word out.
Copp appreciated the input. But in terms of educating the public if they do ban these two materials, he added, “It’s not like flipping a switch — it’s not going to happen overnight.”
