By Carrie Moritz, Gazette
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. That's been the mantra since 1976, when Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, increasing conservation efforts and working to improve environments. The Sioux Falls area, for its part, has been recycling with Millennium Recycling since the early 2000's. But in the past five years, recycling has been decreasing, which is concerning. This needs to be overcome, or the costs of garbage hauling will rise substantially.
The reduction is attributed to many factors, such as a lack of education to new residents, increased apathy towards recycling and its benefits, and a reduction in materials, such as switching to more eco-friendly products. While a reduction in recyclable waste may be encouraging, indicating the "reduce and reuse" portion of the slogan could be seeing improvements, consumer apathy and lack of education needs to be overcome.
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That's because the City of Sioux Falls, which regulates landfill usage for all area garbage haulers, including Garretson's three licensed haulers, requires that a certain percentage of all waste brought in is recycled, or they fine haulers. The costs of doing business at the landfill have also been increasing as space becomes more limited. Those costs then get passed onto the consumer, as only so much can be absorbed before a business is no longer profitable.
According to their ordinance, Sioux Falls expects haulers to help them meet 80% of the recycling goal set for the year.
"The city annually calculates a recycling goal percentage by dividing the verified total weight of all recyclable material by the total verified weight of all municipal solid waste plus all recyclable material approved by the city," states the ordinance.
This means that haulers such as Garbage-N-More must prove that they are contributing to that effort, filing monthly reports showing the tonnage recycled and the tonnage brought to the landfill.
The main thrust of the idea, beyond improving the environment, is to extend the life of the Sioux Falls Regional Landfill. As the city and county populations have grown, so has the use of the landfill, considerably impacting its potential lifespan.
The current landfill was established in 1978; while the city hasn't released an exact number of years remaining on the current site, it is strongly preaching sustainability, and isn't afraid to point out that landfill costs are on the rise.
“Diverting waste from the landfill is important for extending its lifespan and keeping waste collection costs stable for residents,” said Sioux Falls environmental services manager Josh Peterson at a press conference in December 2023. “Plus, reducing and reusing materials saves you money and recycled materials are sent to facilities that turn products into new ones.”
"If we could get a few of us to care just that much more, ultimately, it's a cost benefit to our customers because the landfill keeps raising rates," said Jessie Koob, office manager at Garbage-N-More. "Showing the customer, the five extra minutes [it takes to recycle] in the long run will probably save you more money than you could even imagine."
The reason recycling helps reduce costs is because Millennium Recycling sells its refuse, sending it worldwide to be converted into other materials. The more materials they recover, the more they're able to ship out, and the more they can obtain in profit. This saves the Sioux Falls Regional Landfill from having to increase their rates to recover costs from trenching, digging, and finding new ways to sustain the current site, because even though "out of sight out of mind" takes over with trash, it doesn't go away. It's still taking up space.
Koob said she pointed out at a recent conference that if the reduce and reuse portions are seeing improvements, overall waste should also see a reduction.
"There are some people that shoot for that low-waste lifestyle," she said. "There's lots of things that are going to drive recycling down if more consumers use them." For example, she pointed out, people are starting to move to the laundry sheets instead of jugs of liquid detergent.
However, she noted that a big part of waste in the U.S. is food waste. "I've made a few posts on our Facebook page about the things that are coming out that 40% of all waste is food. And that's insane... imagine all those farmers seeing that and saying 'what am I doing? Should I just throw 40% of my yield out the window?'"
And while she can't make everyone care, Koob and owner Judd Sopoci are working hard to help improve Garbage-N-More's recycling rates.
One of those areas is education. They plan to release individually-customized letters soon that outline recycling for that particular household, because there have been some changes in the past few years.
South Dakota has a recycling rate of only 11%, with 89% of recyclables ending up in the landfill, and it's going down, according to Millennium Recycling.
The company does admit that some of that is due to confusion, pointing out that many customers may not be aware of what is recyclable and what isn't. For instance, Sopoci said, human hair and candy wrappers are often found in their recycling trucks after routes are completed.
While human hair may be compostable, it is not recyclable, and Millennium does not have a composting program. And while plastic bags have had buyers in the past, those markets have dried up, so Millennium is no longer taking them.
"Prior to COVID, [Millennium] did have an outlet for bags," he said. "China took them. And after COVID, Millennium ran into [a problem with staffing]. They still have a problem with not getting help."
Between the market for plastic bags drying up and the lack of staffing, Millennium changed policies and began to refuse them. They have also acquired a robot, which is programmed to reject the bags.
Sopoci is apologetic about Garbage-N-More's bag policy, though, because it has been confusing. Garbage-N-More has two bag policies, and one runs counter to the education put out by Millennium Recycling and the City of Sioux Falls.
While neither Garbage-N-More nor Millennium take plastic bags for recycling, the garbage hauler does request that customers on country routes place their recyclables in bags that are tied shut, and in town customers are asked to keep everything loose in the can or contained within cardboard boxes or paper bags. Millennium's public service announcements have been requesting for no items to be bagged.
The separate bagging policy is because Garbage-N-More utilizes three types of trucks on their routes. One truck has a recycling container in the front portion and the garbage container in the back in order to reduce the number of times the route must be taken; those trucks go out on country routes. In town, one truck is designated for garbage only, and another truck is designated for recycling only.
The compartmentalized vehicle's recycling area is merely a holding tank, and is not fully enclosed, which leads to a few issues: wear and tear on employees, wind causing littering, and lack of space.
"Lifting those tip carts gets heavy after a bit," said Sopoci. There's no hydraulic "helper" to lift the recycling cans like there is for garbage carts. This produces a lot of wear and tear on employees, so it's easier for them to reach into the can, pull out a bag or two, and throw it into the recycling compartment.
Next is wind. Since the compartment is not fully enclosed, recyclables are often lightweight, and many country routes do not have sufficient wind breaks, loose refuse can quickly become litter. Between the loss of that tonnage and potential fines for littering, it can become costly very quickly if recyclables are on the loose.
The third reason for bagging recyclables in the country is space. The compartment is not very large, and recyclables tend to take up a lot of space before they get to the recycling plant, which means that compartment fills quickly. If the items are in bags, they can place more into the compartment.
Once the country route recycling bags arrive at Garbage-N-More's headquarters in Garretson, employees pull the items from the bags and place them into the recycling-only truck, which does have full coverage, and another employee transports the truck to Millennium Recycling.
"We're happy to pay employees to do that," Sopoci said, indicating that anything to help recycling increase is a boon.
Confusion over what can and cannot be recycled could also be impacting what is being sent to the landfill, Koob said. Millennium can recycle paper, plastic bottles and jugs, metal cans, and glass jars and bottles. They do not accept garden hoses or anything that could get tangled in their equipment, yard waste or compostables, plastic wrappers or plastic toys, or batteries.
But the Sioux Falls Landfill accepts leaves and grass clippings, appliances and mattresses for recycling, further leading to confusion.
And then, there are some items that shouldn't be brought to the landfill. Those include microwaves, old television sets, batteries, LED lightbulbs, and wet paint. Those items should be brought to the Hazardous Waste Facility, which is free to all Minnehaha County residents (though there are limits on some items), or can be picked up by Garbage-N-More for an extra fee.
If you do bring items elsewhere for recycling, whether it's to the landfill, TJN Enterprises for scrap metal, or any place that offers a receipt, Koob does request that customers bring the receipt to the office.
"We don't want the money you got for it," she said, "just the receipt." She pointed out that it goes toward their recycling totals and reduces costs for everyone.
Koob said she is always happy to answer customer questions on what should go where. The company offers recycling cans for free rental with their services, something that long-time customers may not be aware of.
As for online resources of what can go where, Millennium has a comprehensive list on their website at https://www.millenniumrecycling.com/singlestream/, and Sioux Falls' city website has quite a bit of information at https://www.siouxfalls.gov/resident-services/landfill-and-recycling.
