Recently on an invoice from our trash service provider I noticed an extra charge of $254 for a “Contamination Fee”. Unfamiliar with this type of charge I contacted the company who told me that the property’s Recycling Dumpster contained items that were not recyclable. I thought, “Okay, maybe I need to educate our Residents better.” Sending emails and letters proved to work for one month. Then the next invoice contained not one, but two of these “contamination fees,” each $254! What?????

I called the company again and was told the only thing the company considers to be recyclable is cardboard. Hummm. But the label on the Dumpster says otherwise. “We recommend that you tell your tenants to only put cardboard in the Dumpster.”

Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of recycling? I asked.

From what I have been told, both Waste Management, as well as Republic Services, another national waste removal company, would ship their scrap paper, plastic materials, and other recyclable items to China for processing. However, last summer, China began to refuse to accept these shipments, virtually eliminating the possibility that they would accept anything from foreign countries. What Waste Management and Republic Services has stated is there is no alternate provider who accepts this type of thing without having to pay extremely expensive shipping and dumping fees. Therefore, waste removal companies are taking the recycling to landfills.

In other words, your contract (usually a 5-year contract) that specifies your property will accept resident’s recyclables in a marked container is in fact collecting it as normal trash and taking it to a landfill. It used to be that rules were relaxed to accept a small percentage of actual trash (like pizza boxes, containers that have small amounts of liquid in them, egg cartons, etc.) but now cannot. Instead of telling their customers though the rules have changed, they kind of ignored the issue and instead just started charging Contamination Fees. I know life is not fair, but somehow this seems shady to me. I am interested to know whether or not valet trash removal service companies have experienced this problem.

I definitely understand that trash removal companies can’t just store the collected Recyclables in some giant warehouse, but shouldn’t they at least make other arrangements to honor their contractual obligation? And, if they cannot, because of circumstances beyond their control, telling their customers that the only acceptable item to recycle is cardboard does not seem to me to be the answer either. Our Residents are concerned about the environment; they want to make a difference in reducing their carbon footprints. At the very least, trash removal companies should INFORM their customers that this problem exists, how they are handling it, and what the future holds in terms of processing recyclables. Don’t bury the problem in a landfill and not expect customers to not notice.