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WEST MILFORD - Do-over sought on recycling contract
(by David M. Zimmer - Staff Writer - October 15, 2008)
WEST MILFORD - The Mayor and Township Council agreed last week to establish a subcommittee that would examine the township’s recycling contracts in an attempt to increase municipal revenue, as other municipalities are seeing substantial profits from new recycling contracts.
The recommendation of looking into new contracts came from the Township Recycling and Beautification Committee and was brought to the council’s attention by committee member Jim Novack during the Oct. 8 council meeting.
While other towns are getting $28 a ton for co-mingled plastics, West Milford only gets 50 cents for each ton, Novack said. This amount was stipulated by a five-year contract that was finalized by Township Administrator Richard Kunze shortly before he left his position, Novack said.
He said the township should call upon the services of Township Attorney Fred Semrau to see if there is any way out of that contract. If so, the township could get 56 times more money for each ton of co-mingled recyclables, Novack said. He added that the town could also receive up to $150 per ton of recycled paper products with a new contract, which is also a large improvement over the current rate of $93.
For the first six months of the year, the township collected $137,000 in total from its standard recycling contract with Trinity Recycling, which is approximately $54,000 more than the amount collected during the first half of last year, said Councilman Philip Weisbecker Jr. Moreover, it is only $44,000 less than the $181,000 total for 2007.
Even though the township is seeing increases in recycling revenue from Trinity Recycling, it could see much more funding with a revised contract. If the township were to receive $125 for each ton of paper goods and $25 for each ton of co-mingled recyclables, it could generate an additional $50,000 each year in revenue, as approximately 1,500 tons of co-mingled recyclables and 2,100 tons of paper are picked up annually in West Milford.
Councilman Robert Nolan agreed with Novack saying that the township should use all its available resources to generate money, especially when it would benefit the environment.
“Recycling is the right thing to do,” Nolan said. “But revenue is also good.”
In Ocean County, which has a countywide program to share recycling revenue, the county gets $720 for each ton of water bottles and $146 per ton of newspaper, according to County Freeholder James Lacey.
With the increasing demand for recycled materials, Ocean County used its collective size to obtain high prices for its recycled goods during the bid process. However, with the revenue sharing program, each municipality only obtains about $24 for each ton of recycled goods, including paper, plastic and metal, though that figure rises to $95 a ton when the cost to dump the materials in a landfill is included, Lacey said.
Nevertheless, even the largest town in Ocean County, Toms River, with a population of around 95,000, will only obtain approximately $300,000 from recycling revenue this year, according to Lacey. On the other hand, Clifton, with 10,000 fewer people than Toms River, generated almost $534,000 last year from its municipal recycling contracts, which is roughly a full tax point in Clifton, Councilman Carmelo Scangarello said.
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