Mesa to recycle more of what is put in blue barrels
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I have read some comments on east Mesa social media about the service. In general, the limited items now collected by the city has been a bit frustrating to some. I think there was an article a while back that discussed how little of the materials collected are being recycled — that was disappointing to some folks, myself included.”
Mesa Councilmember Scott Somers, District 6
Recycling system in the U.S.
The recycling process is made up of three steps that are repeated over and over again, which creates a continuous loop represented by the familiar chasing arrows recycling symbol. The three steps of the recycling process are:
• Step 1, collection and processing: Businesses and consumers generate recyclables that are collected by either a private hauler or government entity. Methods for collecting recyclables include curbside collection, drop-off centers and deposit or refund programs. After collection, recyclables are sent to a recovery facility to be sorted, cleaned and processed into materials that can be used in manufacturing. Recyclables are bought and sold just like raw materials would be, and prices go up and down depending on supply and demand in the U.S. and around the world.
• Step 2, manufacturing: After processing, recyclables are made into new products at a recycling plant or similar facility. Recycled materials are used in ways such as recovered glass in asphalt to pave roads or recovered plastic in carpeting and park benches.
• Step 3, purchasing new products made from recycled materials: Consumers help close the recycling loop by buying new products made from recycled materials. There are thousands of products that contain recycled content.
Source: Environmental Protection Agency
Mesa recycling
This is what can be recycled from homes in the city of Mesa:
• Beverage bottles, jugs and cans — empty, clean and dry (lids and labels do not need to be removed). Examples are water, soda and juice bottles; beer and wine bottles; aluminum soda cans; and milk jugs.
• Metal food cans — empty, clean and dry (labels do not need to be removed). Examples are soup cans, vegetable cans, canned fruit cans and pet food cans.
• Corrugated cardboard only (has a wavy center layer) — remove all packaging (plastic air pouches, Styrofoam, etc.; and break down all boxes to maximize space in your barrel.
• Paper, but only these types — mail and junk mail (postcards, coupons, solicitation flyers, etc.); office paper (copy paper, envelopes, writing paper); magazines; and newspaper (including inserts).
This is what cannot be recycled from homes in the city of Mesa:
• Cereal boxes, frozen food packaging, tissue boxes, cracker boxes, detergent boxes, soda case boxes, and other paperboard items (these items are processed differently than cardboard and regular paper).
The days of turning recycling trash into cash for the city of Mesa have waned in recent years as the cost of disposal has outweighed commodity values. Revenue sharing, with thousands of dollars going back to the city, is no longer offered.
When there are domestic and international markets to sell recyclables to, then there’s processing fees; or the added cost to clean items collected of contaminants such as dried soda stuck to a bottle or nonfat milk left in a jug.
The city presently contracts with a business that can only accept 30% of the more than 30,000 tons a year of recyclables Mesa residents collectively place curbside in their blue barrels, with the remainder trucked to the landfill.
That’s the same as if 10 cans were placed in a blue barrel, three would be taken to be recycled and seven diverted to the landfill with regular household trash.
But Mesa has a plan in place where in late 2023 it will be flipped and only three cans in that example would be taken to the landfill, with seven taken to be recycled. The plan also includes revenue sharing, with the city receiving a portion of the funds made when the recyclables are sold as a commodity.
Recycling in Mesa
Along with paying for solid-waste trash pickup, Mesa residents receive weekly or every-other-week recycling pickup of materials set at the curb in a 60- or 90-gallon blue barrel. Items accepted by the city for recycling include empty, clean and dry metal food cans and beverage bottles, jugs and cans; corrugated cardboard; and some paper products.
The city of Mesa updated its list of accepted recycling items in 2019 to exclude non-beverage plastic containers.
“This was in part due to the high rate of contamination associated with items such as laundry detergent bottles, soap and shampoo bottles, yogurt and jelly containers, and frozen meal packaging. Beverage containers such as milk jugs and water bottles, on the other hand, are much easier to empty and clean before depositing into the blue barrel,” John Zielonka, marketing and communications specialist for the city’s solid waste management department, said.
No data was available to indicate whether plastics collected in Mesa are less contaminated than plastics collected in other communities, he said.
“However, Mesa’s rate of contamination is generally between 9%-12% which is slightly lower than the national average of 17%,” Zielonka said.
The city inspects recyclables picked up from blue barrels placed at the curb at Mesa homes.
“Yes, the city of Mesa employs a team of quality assurance inspectors who manually inspect barrels to facilitate enforcement of ordinances related to contaminated recycling, proper containment of waste material and barrel placement. They are primarily looking to ensure blue barrels contain only items on our list of accepted recycling material, trash is properly bagged and tied, barrels are not overloaded, and that barrels are not left at the curb longer than permitted,” Zielonka said.
The quality assurance inspectors also conduct much of the city’s day-to-day customer outreach, he said.
“When barrels with minor contamination are discovered, inspectors will provide the resident with material to remind them of our accepted items list and why it’s important to avoid contamination. Department representatives also conduct informational presentations at local schools, meet with community groups, and attend community events to promote proper recycling,” Zielonka said.
The city of Mesa recognizes that public outreach plays an important role in ensuring the success of its recycling program, he said.
“One of the best resources available to Mesa solid waste customers is a free online recycling search tool, the Recycle Right Wizard, which can be found at mesarecycles.org. When customers have a question about how to best dispose of a particular item, they can search for it using the Wizard to determine whether it should be recycled, thrown away, taken to the household hazardous materials facility, or disposed of another way,” Zielonka said.
The household hazardous materials facility, 2412 N. Center St. Building No. 2, is for residential material to be reused, recycled or disposed of properly to prevent pollution, according to the city’s website, mesaaz.gov.
The state of the city’s recycling services is not a hot topic of local residents, Mesa Councilmember Scott Somers, District 6, said, but he has seen it brought up on social media.
“I only took office about three weeks ago. I have not received constituent feedback on recycling in that time. It also did not come up during the campaign,” he said. “I have read some comments on east Mesa social media about the service. In general, the limited items now collected by the city has been a bit frustrating to some. I think there was an article a while back that discussed how little of the materials collected are being recycled — that was disappointing to some folks, myself included.”
Recycling contracts, revenue
The city of Mesa collects approximately 32,000 tons of material annually through the blue barrel recycling program, Zielonka said.
Before items placed by residents in a blue barrel and collected curbside by city-owned trucks can be recycled, they must first be sorted at a materials-recovery facility. A five-year, $1.5 million annual contract was approved recently by Mesa City Council with Allied Waste Transportation Inc., doing business as Republic Services Inc., and four months with United Fibers LLC. The City Council on Dec. 8 voted unanimously to approve the contract to provide services related to recycling processing operations including receiving, sorting, processing, storing, marketing and selling recyclable materials.
Mesa does not currently receive revenue from curbside recycling, but received more than $800,000 in two of the last five years.
No revenue was received in 2022, 2021 or 2020, but the city received $171,651.95 in 2019 and $637,438.06 in 2018, Zielonka said.
“Our previous contract with Republic Services included a revenue-sharing component, though we have been unable to utilize that facility since it was destroyed by a fire in 2019. Prior to Jan. 1, 2022, our contract with United Fibers also included a revenue share. That contract has since changed to a flat fee charge per ton of material with no revenue share,” he said.
“Our new contract with Republic Services does include a revenue share component; however, it also includes a fee to process out materials and there is no guarantee of revenue. We will begin sending material to that facility once it is back online and operational,” Zielonka said.
Future plans
Changing from 30% of materials recycled to 70% is slated to happen this year, city officials said at a recent City Council work session.
United Fibers of Chandler was the city’s sole recycling contractor until Dec. 31, 2022. The business, which had been collecting by contract up to 12,500 tons annually, decided not to continue offering the service, Sheri Collins, Mesa solid waste director, said at a Dec. 1 work session.
“United Fibers has made a business decision not to remain in the commingled recycling business. And so we’ve had a really good business partnership with them over the years and so they’ve agreed to remain accepting our recycled material until our longterm solution is put into place,” she said.
The city has a short-term, four-month contract with one-month extensions with United Fibers of 1,000 tons a month, with 30% of recycled material collected.
“The facility capacity can only accept that as well as operationally that’s all we can move there because of the location of the facility,” Collins said.
The other 70% of the recyclables that are collected are dumped in the landfill, she said.
The contract with Republic Services has a longer-term solution including the construction of a materials recovery facility north of Mesa at the Salt River Landfill to open in spring 2023, a five-year initial agreement and 70% of the material collected recycled, according to her presentation.
“At the time that Republic Services’ (materials recovery facility) is built and we start taking materials to them, we’ll be able to increase our material recycled from 30% materials recycled to 70% materials collected recycled,” Collins said.
A Republic Services transfer facility in southeast Mesa may be upgraded in the future to accept materials. The city is also looking at providing a transfer station at the East Mesa Service Center operations, 6935 E. Decatur St.
Closer to the Town of Gilbert, the city of Mesa owns property at Pecos and Sossaman that could be used as a transfer station for both the city and town, city officials said at the work session.
The latter could be operated like the city of Phoenix does with its transfer stations, Lauren Whittaker, interim deputy director of environmental management and sustainability, said at the work session.
“Phoenix is an example. They have two material recycling facilities. What they do is contract out the operation of those facilities and that includes a broker who actually will broker those materials,” she said.
Richard H. Dyer can be reached at rdyer@iniusa.org, or on Twitter @rhdyer. We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
Richard Dyer Managing Editor | East Valley @RHDyer
Meet Richard Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia Inc. USA since 1987, starting his career in Apache Junction as a copy editor and being promoted over the years to work as the editor of the Mesa Independent, news services editor for the East Valley office in Apache Junction, managing editor for the East Valley office, news services editor for the East Valley office and eventually also for the newspapers at INI’s then-Chandler office, managing editor again and as a news editor covering Apache Junction/Gold Canyon and Queen Creek. He helped start the Florence Independent while the news editor covering Apache Junction and Mesa news. In January 2023, he became associate managing editor for the East Valley newspapers and in August 2023 became managing editor for the East Valley newspapers of Chandler/Tempe, Gilbert, Queen Creek, Florence, Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon, while also reporting on Mesa and Apache Junction/Gold Canyon.
Community: Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions.
Education: University of Arizona with a master of arts in journalism and a bachelor of science in agricultural communication. Also continuing education at Mesa Community College in welding in a metal art sculpture class.
Random fact: Saw his first tornado on May 31, 2010, which was classified as an EF-2, as part of a stormchasing tour group.
Hobbies: He is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows.
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