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Ogden, Recycled Earth hope to resolve issues to resume recycling program

By Tim Vandenack standard-Examiner - | Jul 14, 2020

OGDEN — The city of Ogden and Recycled Earth are sorting through their apparent differences to try to revive the city’s recycling program, halted for several months.

Recyclables from Ogden residents have been diverted from Recycled Earth and sent to the landfill instead since last March because the firm was violating terms of its use permit, according to Mark Johnson, the city’s chief administrative officer.

But Johnson said officials hope to fix the situation. The city expects to resume processing recyclables “once challenges with our local recycling provider are resolved or once a viable alternative solution is in place,” reads a statement from the city issued Monday.

David Rawson, owner of Ogden-based Recycled Earth, expressed hope the situation could be resolved. “It is a complicated and difficult situation, but we are working through all the options to have Ogden city return to recycling with us,” he said.

Rawson says the origin of the city’s shift in how recyclables are handled dates to the spring of 2019, when Recycled Earth informed Ogden and other municipal customers that it would need to raise the rates it charges given shifts in the market. China has scaled back the quantity of recyclables it’s taking from abroad, which has hurt the market.

Some Recycled Earth customers apparently bristled at the notion of paying higher rates, including Ogden. Thus the firm continued accepting the materials at the rate already in effect, but with no guarantee that it would be able to process all of it for recycling, as Rawson describes it.

Accordingly, Recycled Earth has been able to recycle some of the materials that have come from Ogden, South Ogden and Washington Terrace over the past year, but not necessarily everything, according to Rawson. In the case of Ogden, recycling of materials generated by the city’s residents definitively stopped on March 3 after the city stopped bringing materials to Recycled Earth because the firm was violating its conditional use permit, Johnson said.

Ogden trucks hauling recyclables “were being directed to dump their loads outdoors,” according to a city press release issued Monday. Outdoor unloading, it went on, “is a violation of the provider’s operating permit from Ogden city.”

Whatever the details, that the city had halted processing of recyclables was a surprise to many, prompting anger the city hadn’t been more open about the change.

“The most disappointing thing about this whole debacle is the lack of communication,” said Adam Tobey. He serves on Ogden’s Natural Resources and Sustainability Stewardship Committee, an advisory body to the City Council and Mayor on environmental issues, yet “heard nothing about this.”

He has since learned of the flap over the conditional-use permit, which led to the definitive stop in recycling, at least for now. “However, if the leadership of Ogden city wants us to trust them in regards to recycling, they need to be transparent about their practices so we as citizens can make the most informed decisions possible for our families,” Tobey said.

Angel Castillo, a local activist and former Ogden mayoral candidate, voiced similar concerns. The city should have more actively sought feedback from residents on their willingness to pay more for recycling when the issue emerged instead of letting the program quietly grind to a halt.

She’d be on board with paying more to see recycling continue “and I think a lot of people are,” she said. “I’m incensed about the fact that nobody said anything.”

In Monday’s press release, the city noted the dynamics with fee changes. “If the recycling provider raises their dumping fees, Ogden city must determine how to absorb those increases or pass those costs on in the form of a higher monthly refuse charge. At some point, the increase cost can become unsustainable,” it reads.

Meantime, the city is asking Ogden trash customers to continue to put recyclables in the blue bins meant for such materials though the waste inside is still going to the landfill. Traditional trash goes in dark green bins. “We strongly encourage customers to continue sorting as normal so that when recycling deliveries resume we have clean recyclables,” said Monday’s statement.

Through it all, processing of recyclables brought to Recycled Earth from other Weber County cities, including Hooper, Roy, Marriott-Slaterville and Huntsville, hasn’t been impacted, according to Jennifer Wargo, spokeswoman for Waste Management. Waste Management hauls trash in those locales. “We are definitively committed to recycling for the long term,” she said.

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