The Silver City Town Council will discuss the town's recycling practices at tonight's regular town council meeting. A lack of markets for recyclables has forced many regional recycling centers to landfill these materials and pass the fees on to customers, including local governments.Silver City -- Recycling practices will soon be changing in Silver City, due to a larger global recycling crisis driven by market forces, federal policy and the fact that other countries—particularly China—are no longer willing to accept America's plastic, mixed paper and other recyclable materials. The issue will be discussed at tonight's meeting of the Town Council, and residents are encouraged to attend to better understand how the town is being affected and what that means for residential and commercial recycling.

When China's ban on some 24 types of plastic took effect last year, regional recycling distribution centers suddenly had no place to sell their materials, forcing them to shift increased costs to their customers, including local governments. Since 2017, China has banned more than 50 types of plastics, paper, scrap metals and other materials, causing a major disruption in the $5 billion U.S. recycling industry, and forcing many recycling centers to close.

For the past five years, Silver City's recyclables have been shipped to Freedman Recycling in El Paso, now at a cost of nearly $211,000 annually, which includes collection downtown, processing and transportation. Freedman recently notified Silver City officials that beginning June 1, they will begin charging an additional $45 per ton to accept recyclables, only to landfill the majority of them. Given that landfill "tipping" fees are $48 per ton locally, the contract with Freedman is no longer cost-effective.

"The hard truth is that we can no longer afford to send waste that used to be considered recyclable to El Paso, just so that they can dump it in their landfill," said Alex Brown, Silver City Town Manager. "It's a very difficult situation, but one that is being faced by local governments all over the country. The United States simply hasn't invested in developing a viable market for these materials, and now that China and other countries aren't accepting them, there's nowhere for them to go."

Cardboard is one exception to the otherwise bleak recycling market, and Brown said the town will continue to recycle as much cardboard as possible. With regard to plastics, the recycling problem has been exacerbated in part by federal policies which reward petroleum manufacturers for continued investment in plastics technology, making it cheaper for manufacturers to purchase "virgin" plastics versus recycled, which are often rendered less attractive from a manufacturing perspective, due in part to cross contamination with other waste.

"Without markets for our recyclables, the best thing that we can do locally is reduce our waste," continued Brown. "We can do this as a local government, and we encourage residents to do the same. It's time that we look carefully at not only how much we consume, but also how the items that we buy are packaged. If we reduce our waste, we'll all save money in garbage collection costs and landfill fees, and we'll be helping the planet."

The Silver City Town Council meeting convenes at 6 pm on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at the Grant County Administration Building, 1400 US Highway 180. For more information and to view the meeting agenda, visit the Town's website at www.townofsilvercity.org.