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Despite Recession, Recycling Still Good For Business in Athens

by Chris Anthony
04/27/2009

Despite international recycling markets taking a major hit from the recession, Athens-Clarke County residents and businesses are recycling about as much as last year, said a county recycling official.

“The [international] markets are down tremendously,” said Suki Janssen, Athens-Clarke County’s Waste Reduction Administrator. “We’re still getting good tonnage [of recycling] in. It’s just hard to get a good price selling it.”

Despite the recession, recycling in Athens-Clarke County has remained strong throughout the first half of the 2009 fiscal year. The county's recycling division pulled in 8,591 tons of recyclables from July 1, 2008 to the end of January. Statistics were not available for February and March.

On a monthly average, that number is on track to total slightly less than the 14,780 tons the county took in during the 2008 fiscal year, according to the Athens-Clarke County Solid Waste Department’s annual report for its recycling division.

But the depressed economy is affecting the resale value of the county's recyclables. With the market suffering, the county is receiving less money for recyclables than it did last year.

“Everything is down,” said Jim Corley, Athens-Clarke County’s solid waste director. “The economy has reduced everything across the board.”

Janssen said that the county is receiving around $8 for each ton of recyclables that it sells, which is down from last year. “The processing fees have been exceeding revenues the past couple of months,” she said.

Even in this tough market, Corley said that “the opportunity is there” for downtown businesses to save money by recycling. The county’s recycling division offers an incentive-based pay-as-you-throw program.

Business owners have to pay $1.50 for each bag of trash that they throw out. But the bags for recyclables are free.

And despite the recession, business owners in downtown Athens said that this incentive is making recycling a viable alternative.

Irvin Alhadeff, owner of Masada Leather & Outdoor and president of the Downtown Athens Business Association, agreed that the pay-as-you-throw program is a good opportunity for downtown businesses.

“It’s quite an incentive,” Alhadeff said. “You can save [up to] $5 every day. We use it every day.”

Alhadeff said that paper and cardboard boxes are Masada’s main recyclables. “We recycle about 90 percent of what comes through here,” he added.

Damon Krebs, owner of downtown bars Allgood and Walker’s, said, “With bags being expensive, recycling provides a pretty nice incentive.”

Krebs said that a normal weekend evening at Allgood yields one to two bags of trash and 15 bags of recycling.

By recycling 15 bags a night, Allgood can save up to $22 just in trash bag costs each evening.

Even smaller downtown businesses are seeing the advantages in recycling.

In a recent application for the Small Business Recycler of the Year award, Bel-Jean owner Julie McLeod wrote, “Though we are a small business with limited opportunities, we make it our policy to always take advantage of every chance to recycle, re-use or provide ‘green’ solutions to our customers and to our community.”

Recycling, throughout downtown Athens has seen significant gains over the last fiscal year. In 2008, recycling in the Central Business District increased 25 percent, jumping from 758 tons in fiscal year 2007 to 946 tons.

“It seems like [the county is] doing a really good job,” Krebs said.