SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Onondaga County residents may have to start paying for recycling. Haulers will be charged $34-per-ton; however, part of the cost will get passed down to the residents. Each household will have to pay about $24 if they choose to recycle.
Syracuse University Environmental Science Professor Daniel Curewitz is unsure how many people will pay for the service, but thinks it is crucial that people continue to recycle.
“Honestly, 24 bucks a year, that’s not very much,” Curewitz said. “You know, that’s three days’ worth of coffee.”
You only have to pay the fee if you want to recycle. Curewitz doesn’t like that it may encourage some people to opt out of recycling. He disagrees with the county’s plan and doesn’t believe that the choice to recycle should be left to the consumers.
“There should be a lump sum payment that goes for trash and recycling and large like construction waste,” Curewitz said. “And it should be sort of all-inclusive. If you use it, you use it, if you don’t you don’t.”
Onondaga County is not the first place to do this. Cities across the nation have either charged residents for recycling or completely cut recycling.
The cost of recycling has increased since China’s National Sword policy was enacted in 2018, banning most imported plastics and other materials. This has caused many places, like Onondaga County, to face issues with funding for recycling. In 2017 the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency earned $125,000 from recycling, and this year is expected to spend at least $2 million.
Although Curewitz understands the high cost of recycling, he believes that charging money for, or cutting recycling is a dangerous trend to continue. Curewitz expressed how important recycling is, despite its challenges.
“Just throwing (recyclable objects) away doesn’t really work out cause you wind up filling up your landfills and getting all kinds of crap into the water system and the food supply,” Curewitz said.
The board of directors for OCRRA will vote on the proposed change next week.
