Finance Committee - 6/6/2018 Page 10
ON THE QUESTION
Mayor Donchess
Now we have discussed this before but since this an item that we really didn’t have to deal with until recently,
maybe Mr. Lafleur you could please give us a brief explanation of this new expenditure.
Jeff Lafleur, Superintendent of Solid Waste
Superintendent Jeff Lafleur of the Solid Waste Department. Our Solid Waste Recycling markets have
dropped. China has completely dropped out of the market, you have probably all seen it in the papers and
everything. So recycling is starting to cost us more money than we ever thought would happen. As of last
year, we were actually making money, it was a revenue making endeavor for the City. With China dropping
out and markets going bananas right now we have a cost associated with us to ship out our recycling. Last
month’s recycling costs were at $63.60 a ton; we ship out 5,000 tons a year.
| secured this vendor, right now they are our current vendor, they decided to stay along with us. We went out
to bid, they gave me a ceiling price of no more than $150.00 a ton which is outrageous, it is a lot of money for
recycling. Recycling is the right thing to do, | believe it is the right thing to do, it saves us air space in the
landfill. We budgeted for $400.000.00 this year. | am hoping that is going to cover it, if it doesn’t cover it, then
| have come back to you guys and we have to make a decision because at that point where do we bend and
where do we break? There are communities all over the United States right now that are stopping recycling. |
don’t think we are that point yet, | don’t believe we should be at that point yet but again if we expend the
$400,000.00 then we have some tough decisions to make.
Alderman O’Brien
Yes, thank you Mr. Mayor. | am disappointed with the world events that caused us into this and | do believe in
recycling as well. But! would like, if you could just share to us, because by doing and continuing with this
program that you suggest that we are going to hopefully improve here, we are getting a little bit of a benefit
even though it is costing us some money, we are elongating our term with the landfill. If we put the recyclables
in the current landfill and save the dollar there we just shorten the life and then we are in a little bit more
difficult of a financial situation.
Mr. Lafleur
Absolutely, we did a rough calculation and over 15 years of air space, we would lose one year of airspace
putting the recycling in there, so we would be losing a month a year pretty much by putting the 5,000 tons in
there. And that is if we can get the right compaction and everything depending on the materials that come in.
If it is all cardboard of course you don’t get as much compaction. But your assessment is correct.
Mayor Donchess
Now if we get Phase IV permitting which | know we are working on but it is not going to happen any time soon,
if we get the Phase IV permitting, what do you project the life of the landfill would be at that point?
Mr. Lafleur
We just had a meeting with our consultant Sandborn-Head and they came up with some really great ideas and
they are actually giving a consideration to going over the top of the old closed MSW landfill, so we could have
depending on where we get approved, we could get 30 to 40, maybe even 50 more years of life with Phase IV
but that’s a big area to cover. So that’s what we are looking at, depending on DES if they are going to give us
the approvals and everything, we are fighting hard for everything we can get.
