Mesa and Gilbert look to build recycling facility - The Arizona Republic

Mesa and Gilbert look to build recycling facility

Recycling costs rise prompting Mesa and Gilbert to explore building a recovery facility
Maritza Dominguez

Mesa and Gilbert city leaders are looking to address demand for recycling services with a locally-owned sorting facility.

Both municipalities approved an agreement to pay an estimated $400,000 to design 15% of the materials recovery facility, or MRF, in Mesa along Pecos and Sossaman roads.

Staff say the facility is needed to grow recycling services and partly relieve the burden from solely relying on third-party companies. Canceled contracts, limited providers and closed facilities have strained the cities' ability to deliver on residents’ expectations.

This strain has been felt across metro Phoenix forcing some cities, like Surprise to no longer send its recyclable materials to MRFs and rather divert the contents of its recycling bins to landfills.

Regardless, Mesa and Gilbert continue sending their blue-bin materials to MRFs. Mesa also has the goal of reducing the volume of recycled materials sent to the landfill by 90%, as laid out in the city’s climate action plan.

In prior years, recycling used to bring the cities revenue, but now is an expense. About five years ago, China began restricting recyclable containers from the U.S. party due to contamination levels which has affected the cost increase to third-party contractors.

Why it’s needed

Sheri Collins, Mesa’s solid waste director, said the city is trying to keep up with residential and business growth.

Gilbert and Mesa are collaborating because of their “mutual interests” of residents and businesses and to share expenses.

The initial design is set to be done in early 2024 and will help provide a cost estimate and establish a solid timeline, Collins said. It could be two to three years out before the city could move dirt, she said.

In the meantime, the two cities are relying on private contractors to continue processing recyclable materials. The two municipalities also joined efforts to approve a five-year multi-agency contract for recycling services in December. Mesa and Gilbert pay $1.4 million annually for the service.

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"Unfortunately," Collins said, only about 30% of Mesa’s recyclable material is collected and the rest is sent to the landfill. She anticipates that number to rise to 70% once the Republic Service facility reopens in July.

The materials recovery facility could also balance the area of coverage Mesa can provide. The MRFs in Mesa are located in northwest areas of the city and can be very costly to transport materials across the city, Collins said.

She said it’s likely the city will continue its contracts with a third-party vendor even after a city-owned MRF is built in order to meet the climate action plan goals.

Effect on recycling

Cites have limited materials that can go in the blue bin as costs have risen to sort and sell recycling materials. That includes items like glass jars, cereal boxes, frozen food boxes among other materials.

To limit contaminated recycling materials, Collins said residents should follow the city’s motto, “when in doubt, keep it out.”

There can be differences in accepted materials between cities. For example, Gilbert residents can recycle their shampoo bottles but Mesa residents can’t. Collins said the new MRF could help expand the items accepted but is still too early to say what could change.

Gilbert’s public works director Jessica Marlow sees this facility as an opportunity to explore those options. Marlow would like to see glass recycling come back, but right now she said it’s too large of an expense to the town.

The town is striving to be innovative and efficient in delivering its services and this facility would be one way to do that, Marlow said.

Reporter Maritza Dominguez covers Mesa and Gilbert and can be reached at maritza.dominguez@arizonarepublic.com or 480-271-0646. Follow her on Twitter @maritzacdom.