I support construction of a single stream recycling facility in New Hampshire. The “New Hampshire Cooperative Recycling Facility” would be constructed off of Exit 17 on Interstate 93. It would serve members of the Concord Regional Solid Waste/Resource Recovery Cooperative. Concord is one of 27 municipalities in the co-op. The facility would also serve recycling facility associate members – municipalities not in the co-op but committed to sending their recyclables to the facility.
For construction to go forward, 25,000 tons of recyclables per year must be pledged from these sources. Unfortunately, the co-op has only received commitments for less than 20,000 tons. Therefore, the Solid Waste Advisory Committee recommended last month that the city council support this project only if the necessary tonnage is secured.
This is disappointing but certainly understandable from a fiscal perspective. However, construction bids and operating proposals are only valid through this month. Equipment bids expired in July. It is a pretty safe bet that if the project is rebid down the road, the cost will be more than the proposed $15 million current price tag, calculated in a down economy.
With 27 co-op communities and a large number of other New Hampshire towns to draw from, why couldn't 25,000 tons of recyclables be found? It would be easy to fault the co-op's marketing plan. After all, the facility has many good selling points. An obvious one is building a plant in New Hampshire would save on transportation costs for towns now paying haulers to truck their recyclables to Massachusetts or Maine. Though some responsibility surely falls on the co-op, there is a bigger factor to consider.
According to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, the state's average municipal recycling rate is 20.35 percent (from a report released on Oct. 8, 2008). When you look at recycling rates from the 27 co-op communities, three quarters of them fell below that average, with almost half reporting rates in the single digits.
Bottom line? The necessary tonnage just isn't there. Granted, with the passing of pay-as-you-throw in Concord, our recycling rate of 9.2 percent (as reported by the city in January) is bound to increase and our recycling tonnage along with it (currently at 3,700 tons per year). But no other co-op community has instituted PAYT.
The co-op is going to have to sign up a lot more communities beyond its 27 members. Or south-central New Hampshire better get much more serious about recycling.
