Las Cruces is learning to recycle smarter, cleaner

Las Cruces’ and Doña Ana County’s award-winning recycling program has some important upgrades in the works.

Recognized as the best recycling program in the United States National Recycling Coalition in 2017, the South Central Solid Waste Authority (SCSWA) is planning to spend about $2.5 million as an initial investment in a gas collection system to improve air quality and another $4.5 million on a plastic liner for a 14-acre addition to the Corralitos Landfill to protect local groundwater.

And that’s on top of the recycle right campaign called “No What to Throw New Mexico” that SCSWA launched in March.

The improvements come as the recycling industry worldwide struggles to find profitability since China’s decision in 2018 to stop buying more than half the world’s sorted recyclables.

“China was the world’s trash bin,” SCSWA Director Patrick Peck told the Las Cruces City Council earlier this year. Since no other nation has stepped in to fill that void, SCSWA and other organizations like it are rethinking how and what is recycled, Peck said. Everyone in the city and county served by SCSWA must be part of that conversation, he said.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in 25 years in the recycling market,” he said at the city council meeting. “If recycling is going to survive … we have to figure out a way to build equity within our program.” Recycling makes good economic sense because it “keeps stuff out of the landfill.”

Many European countries are moving toward a zero-waste concept because they don’t have the space for ever-expanding landfills, said Suanne Michaels, who does public outreach for SCSWA. “it’s a whole different mindset,” she said.

“We have to go to a European model,” Peck said, including exploring the generation of electricity from disintegrating waste and waste incineration. Recycling locally, nationally and globally has been a passive system, he said, but must “be more active and more engaged.”

A good example of the need for change is food waste, which accounts for more than 40 percent of the waste stream, Peck said. A composting operation could be part of the answer to that problem, he said, just as recycled vehicle tires could be turned into crumb rubber and used for local street repair.

“We have to develop some kind of sorting infrastructure in Las Cruces,” said Peck, who is past president of the New Mexico Recycling Coalition.

“China made it so simple,” creating a culture of “wish recycling,” Peck said. “We have to stamp that out.”

“Keep it local” is another important consideration, Michaels said, because the cost of transporting recyclables “eats up all the profits. Everybody’s trying to work together to bring in local recycling processes,” she said. “We’ve got to be able to do this better.”

Creating a “circular economy” where nearly everything that is consumed is recycled is “always an education process,” Michaels said. For example, she said, people putting used diapers in their blue recycling bins is “one of the biggest contaminants in single stream.” Some people also think things like broken or damaged windowpanes are recyclable. They aren’t, and neither are greasy pizza boxes or other used food containers that still have food residue in them.

The focus for recycling should be “clean and dry,” Peck and Michaels said.

SCSWA sends about 200 tons of recycling each week to Friedman Recycling, which has processing plants in Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso and Albuquerque. “Las Cruces has a very high-quality (waste) stream,” Peck said. “Friedman likes our stream.”

SCSWA was created jointly by the City of Las Cruces and Doña Ana County in 1994 to manage garbage collection and recycling.

For more information, including what should and should not be recycle, visit https://scswa.net/. Also visit www.recyclenewmexico.com.