SLO County feels impact of statewide recycling center closures

Local residents are experiencing long wait times and inconvenient drop-off locations after large recycling center closures statewide.

About a fifth of California’s recycling redemption centers have closed in the past year, and 13 recycling centers have closed locally since June 2015, leaving San Luis Obispo County with 10 remaining centers, according to data provided by CalRecycle.

Of the local closures, three centers were in San Luis Obispo, two centers each were in Arroyo Grande, Los Osos and Morro Bay and one center each was in Atascadero, Paso Robles, Oceano and Nipomo.

Bill Worrell, manager at San Luis Obispo County Integrated Waste Management Authority, said his agency typically receives one to two complaints daily about the closure of local centers. People were more verbal in the beginning of the year when many of the centers first closed, he added.

“It’s nothing we’ve done locally, and there’s nothing we can do locally,” Worrell said. “It’s a state program, and this is happening through the state.”

When people call, Worrell said he advises them to contact CalRecycle at 1-800-Recycle and lodge a complaint.

“I think everybody agrees we need more recycling centers,” Worrell said. “The question is, how do we get that?”

RePlanet, a large operator of recycling centers in the state, was among those companies that closed centers.

In announcing 191 center closures in January, rePlanet said the operations were no longer sustainable, according to a company news release. If and when the state makes the necessary changes that would allow the company to operate profitably, rePlanet noted, it would reopen as many recycling centers as possible.

Since the local center closures earlier this year, lines are typically about two to three hours long if only one employee is working and less than two hours if two people are working, said a rePlanet employee at the recycling center behind Target on Los Osos Valley Road. One person helps him at that center, he said.

Before so many centers closed, the wait was usually less than 30 minutes, he said.

Mark Oldfield, communications director at CalRecycle, attributes much of the challenge the centers are facing to the low cost of oil, which makes it less expensive to produce items from virgin materials. That in turn causes the recycled goods to be less profitable.

Although the state runs a subsidy payment program intended to help centers survive market fluctuations, it’s been unable to keep up with rapid decreases in the value of plastic, glass and aluminum.

Oldfield views the issue of center closures as largely a business one because the recycling centers are private businesses. He said that if they reopen, it will be because it makes business sense to do so.

The closure of the centers is part of a larger picture, Oldfield said, noting that the program faces an ongoing structural deficit as expenses exceed revenues. Various stakeholders are trying to identify what changes need to be made to make the program sustainable.

The Legislature hasn’t been able to agree on a solution to prevent further closures or to solve the program’s problems.

“We don’t know what the future holds,” Oldfield said. “We’re going to sit down with the various stakeholders and have these conversations and see what comes out of that and where the program goes from here.”

This story was originally published September 9, 2016 at 4:06 PM with the headline "SLO County feels impact of statewide recycling center closures."