By Russ Tarby

Contributing Writer

On the day before the general election last week, the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency sent a memo to private haulers and municipalities, including the village of Liverpool, informing them of tipping fee increases going into effect Jan. 1, 2021.

The new fee schedule will remain in effect through 2022, according to the Nov. 2 memo sent by OCRRA Executive Secretary Renee Czerwiak.

Liverpool Mayor Gary White said that the increased costs could prompt the village to raise the price of its trash stickers. Currently the stickers cost residents 75 cents for small trash bags, and $1.50 for large bags.

The Nov. 2 memo reported that the OCRRA Board of Directors unanimously adopted its 2021 Budget and Master Fee Schedule on Oct. 14 including a $5 per ton increase to the Municipal Solid Waste tip fee bringing the total per ton disposal rate to $100 per ton for both calendar years 2021 and 2022. 

White is more concerned about the newly instituted tipping fee of $34 per ton for recyclables.

“We could cover the $5 per ton increase for solid waste,” White said, “but the $34 per ton cost for disposing recyclables might hurt us. A big question is how many tons of recyclables does the village generate every month.”

The OCRRA statement pointed to the depressed state of the worldwide recyclables market.

“It is no longer sustainable for OCRRA to cover 100 percent of the cost of curbside residential recyclables tipped at the OCRRA contracted Material Recovery Facility,” Czerwiak wrote.   

The $34 per ton tip fee for curbside residential recyclables represents approximately half the cost of processing and marketing these materials, she added.

OCRRA Public Information Officer Kristen Lawton pointed out that the agency has provided recycling services gratis for 30 years as an incentive to recycle. But now that the recycling markets are so dismal, the agency can no longer handle recyclables without charging.

OCRRA Executive Director Dereth Glance addressed the issue in the agency’s fall newsletter.

“In 2018, the loss of the Chinese export market created an abundantly oversupplied recycling system with half of the demand it once had, crashing markets,” Glance wrote. “Three years later, it has still not improved and OCRRA has seen its subsidy rise [to cover its current zero-tip fee] from $688,000 in 2018 to $1.8 million in 2019 and $2.5 million in 2020. OCRRA anticipates costs near or above $2.5 million in 2021. This is no longer a trend we can weather alone. In 2021, OCRRA anticipates cost sharing with municipal and private haulers that deliver curbside recyclables for sorting and marketing.”

White said the village board of trustees has not yet decided whether or not to raise the price of trash stickers.