With the market for recyclables in a tailspin, the Bowling Green Recycling Center has requested a
$135,000 annual cost increase from the City of Bowling Green for services.
“It’s very shocking,” said Councilwoman Sandy Rowland during a committee of the whole meeting Tuesday to
discuss recycling. “We have to do something. We have to.”
According to a presentation delivered by Municipal Administrator Lori Tretter and Sustainability
Coordinator Amanda Gamby, the city is under contract with the recycling center for all curbside
recycling.
The city pays approximately $80,000 for its services. That money comes from two sources:
• a direct payment from the city, plus an additional cost to dispose of garbage which gets mixed in with
recyclables
• the city’s Per Capita Grant from the Wood County Solid Waste Management District, which the city sends
to the recycling center
However, the economics of the recycling industry have taken a major hit.
“It does sound a little bit doom and gloom,” said Gamby, who has been involved with the recycling
industry for 15 years. “I would say it’s probably the worst that I have seen it.
“There are many arguments for recycling,” she said, “but the bottom line is there is very much an
economic side that drives recycling just like any other product.”
Mixed curbside recycling, like Bowling Green has, still needs to be sorted and that requires expensive
equipment and higher processing costs. Recyclables from the United States had relied on international
markets in past decades, but those avenues have either dried up or restrictions in certain countries,
like China, are tightening. And while the recycling center doesn’t ship overseas, the dwindling
international markets have created a surplus of materials at recyclables mills in the U.S., driving down
prices, or resulting in outright rejection of loads of recyclables.
“You get into basic supply and demand issues,” Gamby said.
Indeed, most of the materials are being sold at a loss once collection, transportation,and processing are
factored in, she said. As a result, though some domestic markets are trying to recover, some communities
are actually shutting down their recycling programs because of the economic issues.
“For some communities, they have no choice,” Gamby said. “It about tears their hearts out to do it but
that’s where some of them are at right now.”
Tretter said that the city has been renewing the terms of a 2008 contract with the recycling center every
two years, but there has been a back and forth between the two parties since last year when the facility
sought additional funds from the city. Early this year, Tretter said, they were able to get a 50-cent
increase in the solid waste management per capita grant, resulting in an additional $15,000.
However, the facility withdrew a previous request for an increase in April and in July issued the request
for the $135,000 funding increase.
If approved, that would bring the total paid by the city for recycling to $215,000. That would mean an
immediate $1,250-per-month increase, and a $10,000 monthly increase starting in 2020, along with planned
yearly increases, as well as the per capital grant and $5,000 a year from the city to pay for garbage
which ends up in the recyclables.
A July letter from Ken Rieman, chair of the recycling center, states “the decision that the city will
have to make is whether to agree to this increase or look elsewhere for recycling services. We urge the
city to explore the cost of other options compared to the Recycling Center, or dropping recycling
services to the citizens. We believe you will find that additional support for the Recycling Center is
the least cost option even with the significant increase.
“The decision that the Recycling Center will have to make will be emotionally difficult, but
mathematically simple,” the letter continues. “We will decide, based on funds available, when it will be
necessary to cease services because of lack of funds to carry on our operations. The places we can look
to for continuing support are limited.”
Speaking at Tuesday’s meeting, Rieman said he hasn’t seen the recycling market this bad in 40 years, and
noted that one major source of revenue, newsprint, has dried up with the decline in newspaper
readership. The curbside recycling program in the city, he said, was originally based on the newsprint
market.
“Newspaper is never coming back as a material,” Rieman said. “We’re at the mercy of what’s happening as
materials change. And materials always change.”
Later in the meeting, he said that the recycling center is losing between $10,000 and $12,000 per month.

“We’re operating on the reserves,” Rieman said. “I don’t see it going back to the model of the materials
pay their way to the market. That’s changed.”
“This is a hard conversation to have, folks,” Tretter said. “We love sustainability. We love recycling in
Bowling Green. It’s hard to get up here and discuss the economics of it, but that’s our jobs.”
Tretter said the administration recommends issuing a Request for Proposals for 2020 and deciding how to
move forward from there.
“Doing so would give us an opportunity to look at our programs and give us some analysis to best
structure a contract,” she said.
Prompted by a question from Councilman Bill Herald, Tretter said they would like to have an idea about
where the city will be going as they head into the 2020 budget.
“These are very large numbers and we need to have a game plan moving forward,” she said. “We would like
to bring you legislation authorizing us to move ahead for a request for proposals and contracting for
services.”
Tretter, answering a question from Council President Mike Aspacher, said that they have requested
detailed budgets from the recycling center to determine what other revenue sources the facility has, and
pinpoint other costs.
Aspacher said the recycling center provides a service to the community and deserves to be fairly
compensated, and that council hears consistently from residents about how important recycling is to
them. Council, he said, has an obligation to satisfy residents’ desires and to “do what we can to
recycle.
“I think it’s really important to figure out how to make this work. Whether it’s with the BGRC or with
another private party on the market, we’ll see,” Aspacher said.
He said that there is a consensus on council for the administration to prepare legislation seeking a
request for proposals, and said that Tuesday’s meeting was likely the first of many discussions on
recycling.
“We’ve got to have a transparent discussion how we can solve this problem,” Aspacher said.