A primary component of the Great Garbage Negotiations of 2014 was the launching of a curbside-recycling program for San Angelo, which went into effect the following year.
Since then, citizens have since kept hundreds of tons of recyclable materials out of the landfill each month.
Joe Spano is the municipal manager for Republic Services in San Angelo, and said he feels the program has come a long way in the last decade.
“We’ve got a great program in San Angelo, and great partnerships,” Spano said.
“The city is a great partner with us; they have great people in the solid waste department, and they do a great job of helping us identify customers that may not be in tune with what is available, or understand what is allowed in those containers.
“So, we work very closely with the city, trying to help educate people and improve the process.
“Since we started this — in very-early 2015 — the citizens have gotten very, very good at recycling.
“We used to have a lot of problems, and very high contamination rates, and now our contamination rates, here in San Angelo, are right on par with most of the country.
“So, they’ve done a really great job of learning the process and getting used to it.
“A lot of folks who weren’t really into recycling, and didn’t want to do it, have opted-in over time, and the program has really improved.
Our other partner is Butts Recycling, and we are only able to take the items that Butts can accept.
“For curbside recycling in San Angelo, that means we take plastics — 1 & 2 — cardboard, and then aluminum and steel cans in the single-stream program.”
Spano keeping contaminants out of the trucks is very important to their operations, adding that monitoring the green bins is an added responsibility of the drivers doing the recycling route.
“You may have seen how our trucks are set up,” he explained. “Those drivers are able to see — for the most part — what is in that container, so that helps us monitor what we are taking in.
“Obviously, we can’t see everything, but those guys are hopefully able to identify contamination before it gets into our system.”
“It’s kind of like how one bad apple spoils the whole bunch,” he said. “I tell people — When in doubt, leave it out.”
“But San Angelo’s really fortunate to have Butts Recycling, and they really are experts in their field.
“We just the delivery guys,” he said.
Butts Recycling
Keith Butts is the general manager at Secured Document Shredding and BRI Solutions (Butts Recycling), and he agreed the citizens of San Angelo have been great about getting on board with the curbside recycling.
“I think over the last decade things got a lot better, but of course, there’s always room for improvement.
“I’ve lived in several cities in this country, and whether it’s Austin or Dallas… Los Angeles or West Texas, everybody has room for improvement
But I think its been a very good thing, and as long as we continue to educate the public, and let them know why it’s important, and where they can recycle things properly
“We do plastics 1 & 2, and cardboard, along with aluminum cans and tin cans, and once it gets here, my crews work to separate it, pretty much all day, and then we bale it, and once we have enough for a truckload, we contact the recycling plants and they send a truck.
Butts said it varies as to what the plastics become next, but said they work with many different certified recyclers throughout the United States, and where something ends up depends on a variety of market factors, like any other commodity.
The recycling market is kind of like the stock market,” he said, “And every month, it kind-of follows the stock market.
Prices go up or down, or stay the same, and I’ve been watching things for years, and trying to figure out the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of it all — but whether you’re dealing with an overabundance of product, or there’s not enough — the market definitely fluctuates every month.
The Problem With Plastics (3-7?)
Butts said the number of different types of plastics in the waste stream is more than seven.
“I think now they’re actually somewhere in the teens,” he said. “And one of the big problems with plastics is that these mega corporations keep inventing new plastics, that are actually just less expensive, for packaging, and the thing is, they aren’t easy to recycle, and there isn’t a market for any of it.
“As a business, I can tell you we’re always looking for ways of making it practical to recycle these things, but we’re not there yet.
What About Glass?
Butts said “what about glass?” is probably the question he gets asked most, and said he would like it there was a market for glass recycling.
“Years ago, we were able to recycle glass, but now we don’t do it because the logistics just don’t make sense anymore from a business standpoint.
“We’re kind of on an island out here in West Texas, and there isn’t anyone near here who has a plant where glass is recycled.
“We’re a family business, like any other, and we can’t do something we’d lose money on. It would be a money-losing adventure for us at this point, for sure.
“It’s dangerous, it’s heavy, and the logistics just don’t make it worth anyone’s while right now, but I’m always looking for new avenues or ways to incorporate glass.
I’d say, at least four times a year, when we’re at conferences, or networking with other people, we’re always talking about ways to get glass back in the system, but right now, it’s just not feasible.
Thinking About The Future
Both managers agreed that keeping material out of the landfill was pretty important considering how difficult it is to get a permit for a new landfill. So, making the one we have last as long as possible is in everyone’s best interest.
Spano said the capacity of the trucks is about 10 tons, or 20,000 pounds.
The landfill takes in around 1,000 tons of garbage per day.
Landfills are like living, breathing animals,” Spano explained. “At some of the larger landfills in the country, they actually capture enough gas to be useful … in some places they use that gas to power different things.
We’re not that big, so we don’t do that here. We just have flares that burn it off, because there’s not enough to be useful.
Spano said if the area got more rain, generally, the landfill would produce more methane and other gases.
Spano said running a landfill is a more complicated business than most people realize, with very-specific requirements about monitoring and reporting to both state and federal agencies.
Landfills require permits from the TCEQ before operations can begin.
Regulations cover daily operations, including waste acceptance, cover requirements, dust and odor control, and vector control.
The San Angelo City landfill has a total capacity of 7,168,182 cubic yards.
According to data from the City of San Angelo’s Solid Waste Department, the landfill was estimated to have available capacity for approximately 17 years in 2021.
The Concho Valley Council of Government’s Regional Solid Waste Management Plan noted that waste taken to the San Angelo landfill decreased by 1,735 tons from 2020 to 2021, based on Texas Commission on Environmental Quality reporting.
That report also noted: “waste tonnage projections for the region are expected to remain at the same level currently being produced. The reason for this is that, while the population of the region is growing, the recycling and waste reduction programs are also increasing. Therefore, any increases in the number of waste producers will be offset by advances made in waste reduction and recycling efforts.”
Other Recycling Available Here
San Angelo Friends of the Environment has a page that lists all of the currently accepted recyclables and where to take them.
