Gilford shows how to rebuild recycling program after industry collapse

A case in point, she said: Styrofoam. That ubiquitous packing material can’t be recycled even though it carries the misleading three-arrows-in-a-triangle symbol. The symbol doesn’t mean an item can be recycled; it only indicates what the item is made of.

Letting residents know about the problem with Styrofoam, so they won’t toss it in the recycling bin, can save the town money because it means less of its recycling stream will be rejected by buyers.

“We’re trying to promote recycling in a positive way,” said Theriault.

Gilford, a town of 7,300, has completely revamped its recycling program in the last two years. Residents formerly used Laconia’s transfer station for their trash but Gilford has built its own facility. Just as importantly, it switched from single-stream, in which all potentially recyclable materials are jumbled together, to requiring that residents separate out different items.

This comes as the world’s recycling industry is still adjusting to China’s decision three years ago to stop taking huge amounts of material, regardless of quality. The price of most recycled materials collapsed when that happened, turning a profitable operation into a big loss for many towns and cities.

“A lot of communities just stopped. It was cheaper to just throw it away as trash,” Theriault said.

Among the most unusual attempts to restart the industry is occurring in Maine, which has passed a statewide law that will make producers and distributors of products pay for the cost of trashing or recycling the packaging, rather than leaving it entirely up to taxpayers or volunteers. This could provide an incentive for companies to cut back on packaging, helping reduce the problem rather than just try to deal with it after the fact.

A common response by communities has been ending single-stream collection, as Gilford has done. This is ironic because the widespread adoption of single-stream collection more than a decade ago was seen as the best way to increase recycling by making it easier for people to participate.

Getting residents to separate their recycling lets the town bundle items like aluminum cans, some plastics and paper, so they can take advantage of fluctuations in the market when the time comes to sell it or pay to dispose of it, Theriault said.

For example, properly sorted and baled mixed paper went from being sold for $20 a ton in February to $105 a ton in September, while clean, baled cardboard rose from $80 to $190 a ton. Gilford has collected 173,000 pounds of mixed paper through October, roughly on par with past years, but its cardboard collection has soared, presumably a result of more items being bought online. Last year through October Gilford had collected 203,00 pounds of cardboard; this year it has collected 366,000 pounds, an increase of some 80%.

Many prices for recycled material have rebounded from low points earlier in the pandemic. The most profitable at the moment is No. 2 plastic, the kind used in milk jugs, which has gone up 60% in a year to more than $1,200 per ton, according to the Northeast Resource Recovery Association, more even than aluminum cans.

A part of Gilford’s outreach involves telling residents this.

“We let people know. They think, OK, it’s a pain that I have to separate my stuff but we just made a bunch of money for the town,” Theriault said.

Gilford has also created storage areas where it can hold tons of material until it has a full tractor-trailer load, which reduces per-ton shipping costs.

Gilford beat out 10 other communities for first place in the “engaging residents” best practices contest held by New Hampshire The Beautiful, a non-profit created by state beverage distributors and grocers.

Theriault ticked off a number of things the town has done, from lots of small colorful signs with specific advice to an active Facebook group, to future plans for “trash on the lawn day” at the middle school.

“The idea is to see how much actually can be recycled,” said Theriault.

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