Sisters Recycle Center test project continued

At a joint city council/county commissioners meeting Thursday the council agreed to continue the test project at Sisters Recycle Center (SRC) through the end of November. The final results of the test project will be reviewed at a joint meeting in January 2013.

The council made their decision after reviewing the input from a mail-in survey the city began in May, and after looking over the first two months of data from the test project that started in July. The survey and test project are designed to determine needs, wants, and wishes of Sisters Country residents regarding recycling.

The test project includes keeping the 388 W. Sisters Park Dr. recycling center open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. The center is manned a few days a week by High Country Disposal (HCD) and daily by city staff.

The city and HCD are monitoring the center, looking for signs of improper disposal of household garbage, improperly sorted items (contamination), and any vandalism of the property itself. With input from HCD, the city is producing a monthly report detailing center activity, tonnage hauled and revenues collected. The city reports having to spend less than an hour a day at the site.

At a joint city/county meeting earlier this year, the county agreed to subsidize the SRC to the tune of $36,000 for one more year, provided that the city could present a solid data-based plan for the operation of the center going forward. Future county contribution to the support of the recycle center is yet to be determined.

The survey, distributed through High Country Disposal billings in May, went out to 800 city households and 1,200 county households. More than 700 surveys were returned. This is considered a very high response rate.

City Manager Eileen Stein summarized the results of the survey into four key points: 84 percent of the respondents indicated that they do recycle; if the SRC was closed, 70 percent of the respondents indicated that they would dispose of their recyclables in their regular garbage; 73 percent indicated they were satisfied with the hours of operation of the SRC (at that time four days a week); 45 percent indicated that they would be willing to pay an increased rate to keep the SRC open.

Earlier exit surveys showed that as much as 70 percent of the use of the SRC is by county residents. While city residents have curbside recycling of commingled recyclables and glass, many in the county have commingled pickup, but not glass pickup. Others have no curbside recycling.

It is believed that most of the county residents use the SRC to recycle glass.

Mayor Lon Kellstrom said, "It seems to me that the (city) taxpayers should not pay to subsidize the county (residents') use of the facility. Going forward you are looking at as much as $50,000 per year that should not come out of the city taxpayers pockets. Would we not accomplish the same thing if we added curbside glass recycling for the county?"

HCD President Brad Bailey presented the July and August data summarizing the costs, revenue, loads hauled and tonnage for the test period. Even with the county's $3,000 per month subsidy, the SRC is projected to run at a net loss of about $4,000 per year.

Bailey reported that commodity prices have been dropping significantly in the last few months due to decreased foreign market demand. He expects this trend to continue. This will only increase the shortfall.

While cardboard remains profitable, the net losses from sorting and hauling glass cancel out any net profit for the SRC operation.

Council President David Asson said, "It is nice to do it, but is there a real cost to just throwing it away?"

Timm Schimke, director of Deschutes County Department of Solid Waste responded, "There is definitely a benefit to diverting tons from the landfill. You don't have to make money on recycling because there is a benefit lengthening the life of the landfill and that can be significant. Every year that the landfill is able to operate where it is as opposed to transporting all of the waste somewhere is significant."

Schimke indicated that glass recycling remains an issue. For Central Oregon, hauling and sorting glass is a losing proposition.

Stein asked Schmike what was happening with recycle centers in the rest of the county.

Schimke said, "In Sunriver the collection company incorporated the cost of the depot into their book of business 100 percent. They have not come to me with any concerns or any requests for additional assistance." La Pine and Sisters requested assistance and are getting subsidies of $14,000 and $36,000 respectively.

County Commissioner Tony DeBone said, "There may be some subsidies appropriate, but it is not being budgeted by the county commissioners at this time." DeBone referred to Sunriver's solution as potentially a good model.

Councilor Pat Thompson supports keeping the SRC open and has been critical of the county's decision to eliminate subsidies after supporting the construction of what Thompson sees as a nearly $1 million-dollar investment in the SRC facilities just five years ago.

"This has never been considered a revenue generator," said Thompson. "There are some real benefits to keeping a lot of material out of the landfills."