Republic Services Speaks

Overflowing green and brown garbage bins on some city streets have led to confusion and outrage regarding the new trash and recycling program, prompting an influx of phone calls at the trash and recycling centers regarding pickup schedules and questions on how the recycling program works.

When Republic Services prepared to switch to the new automated system, the company bought 10 new trucks with electronic pick-up arms, thus eliminating the need for manual assistants. Men who used to ride on the back of the trucks and physically empty the cans were transferred or promoted, and new routes and schedules for the entire city were implemented along with the new program.

Since the start of the system on Monday, many residents have voiced concern that their trash had been picked up but their recycling had not, or vice-versa. The issue is one the company is aware of and is working to correct, said Republic Services General Manager Ray Grothaus, who offered some insight into how the transition has been felt on his end.

“There are two different trucks that will go down [a specific] area,” Grothaus explained. “On each collection day, say Monday, we’ll run six trash and four recycle routes. The four recycle routes will pick up more containers than the trash routes because of the capacity of the capability, so they have a little more capacity on the recycle routes.”

The trash and recyclables are never placed in the same truck, he said, and since each truck has its own route and schedule, they may not arrive at the same time of day to collect.

“A lot of it is that it’s a timing issue,” he said regarding missed bins. “We’re coming by them that day, but it’s at different times, but they came home at lunch and one was dumped and not the other. In some cases, we potentially did miss [collection], but like I said, there’s new areas for our drivers that they’re getting familiar with…and each week we’ll have incremental improvement on that.”

Grothaus said that Republic is running extra support routes with the old, employee-assisted trucks to ensure that all garbage is collected while they wait for the remaining two of 10 new trucks to be delivered.

Addtionally, those who do not intend to use their recycling containers are urged to return them, while those with larger needs can rent a second trash cart from Republic for $5 per month.

“You can’t do one-for-one,” Grothaus said. “You can’t exchange it or swap it out for a trash can because we have to pay for the disposal. The idea of the recycling is that Butts is processing those materials and it prevents it from going to the landfill, and in lieu, we don’t have to pay for the disposals, so that’s what the extra $5 covers, is the disposal.”

Regular, personal trash cans will not be emptied once Republic switches to full automation.

Plastic Bottles, Not Bags

At Butts Recycling Center, President Sandra Preston says the transition has been going fairly well this week, despite a bit of confusion as to what can and cannot be recycled.

Prior to the contract with Republic, Butts Recycling handled exclusively commercial contracts, and their facilities needed an extensive overhaul in order to be able to take on the residential program. Part of that overhaul included the construction of a brand new 8,000 square feet building, plus new sorting equipment and an increase in staff.

The idea for the plant was conceived roughly two years ago, Preston said, but the green light to build wasn’t given by the city until May and the building was constructed in 61 days, including equipment installation. As of Wednesday the crew at Butts was waiting only on the final inspection in order to be able to open the new facility and use the updated sorting system.

“To process the product, we have a sorting line, which is a conveyer belt that brings it up about…15 feet and then it runs along a conveyor that’s flat and we have people standing on it and there are shoots right next to them,” Preston said, describing how it works. “Each person is assigned a product—you have aluminum, you have tin, you have paper—and they just drop it down the chute. Then at the bottom of that is a bay or a holding area and then it’s taken over to a baling machine and then it’s compressed and it’s ready to ship.”

Where the product ends up depends on the material, Preston said. Plastics are shipped to Arizona, while much of the cardboard is shipped to Oklahoma. Aluminum stays in the city and is taken to Acme Iron and Metal, while newspaper goes to Mexico.

What is accepted in the residential program and what is not has been decided by Butts, who decline items such as plastic bags and glass due to cost-prohibitive shipping fees and a low market demand, Preston said.

“…a lot of our plastics are shipped overseas and they put up a new guideline,” Preston said, referencing the Green Fence Operation. “That’s what stopped the plastic bags. It was exported to China and they said they will not take plastic bags anymore.”

While there are places that still accept plastic bags, Butts does not cater to that market, and the thin plastic of the bags gums up their machines, VP Kevin Butts explained. As for the glass, Preston reminded that the facility utilizes a hand-sorting system, and that most glass items tend to shatter and splinter during pick up, transport and dumping at the sorting site. Glass also weighs a lot, she said, and the cost of shipping the material to the closest plant in Brownwood outweighs the return. In a business that is already cost-prohibitive, accepting glass is just not a viable option for Butts at this point, Preston explained.

The processing plant on 11^th St. is the first of its kind between Fort Worth and El Paso, and no other West Texas city has attempted to implement a citywide recycling strategy like San Angelo’s.

In seeking to set up the recycling initiative, Republic and Butts worked together to assess the needs of the city and determine what scale of equipment would be needed to handle such a vast intake of materials.

“It’s very cost prohibitive to return your funds,” Sandra Preston said. Without a partnership with Republic, they would not have been able to take on such a large project.

“The only way this could work is if we could come up with a hand sorting system, downsize and hand sort it,” Sandra’s husband, Fred Preston added. “Even with that, we’re lucky to break even with the product, depending on what the market’s doing and all that stuff. Republic—hand-in-hand—worked with us…they helped us with a little bit of equipment, gave us a good price on some of the equipment to kind of help us, but for the most part, this is all on us. That’s we threw that 50 cents in there.”

The 50 cents, Fred Preston explained, is a monthly charge added to the bill of every resident should the recycling plant not reach a pre-determined threshold of 500 tons per month.

“That’s our breakeven spot,” he explained. “If they’re bring us 300 tons, 200 tons, 400 tons, we’re not getting enough product to make our money back in a good market. Whether I run 100 tons or 500 tons, I’ve got to put that manpower and the equipment and everything out there. It’s that same cost to run that, so we looked at the value of our product coming back and that was our teeter-totter spot.”

Fred Preston said that the intake has been fairly high this week, presumably because the trash carts were delivered roughly a month ago and people have been collecting their recyclables for some time, waiting for the program to start. Next week, he said, they should have a better idea of how much they will be seeing in average tonnage on a regular schedule.

The first three days of the week, Butts was averaging just under 20 tons of recyclables per day. While that rate is anticipated to drop off some next week, Ray Grothaus is confident things will even out as people become accustomed to the new process.

“This is week one and we expected some hiccups, but overall, [it has been] very much a success,” Grothaus said. “This new system kind of changes the behavioral patterns of the citizens, and we’re kind of working through that. We’re trying to make it as effortless as we can for the community.”

For more on what and how to recycle, check out the five essential things you need to know now.