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Charlotte County Turns Trash Into Cash

JASON MCKIBBEN / Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Jim Wantz organizes discarded appliances at the Charlotte County recycling transfer station on Sept. 19.

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KATE SPINNER / Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: October 8, 2007

Charlotte County used to pay to dispose of old motor oil, paint cans and appliances people dropped off for recycling.

Now the county gets paid -- about $6,000 a month.

Charlotte has turned one of its recycling centers into a moneymaking enterprise by investing in a little research and a few pieces of equipment that increase efficiency.

"We were always recycling motor oil and batteries," said Barbara Kula, Charlotte County's solid waste resource manager. Now the waste flow has generated a revenue flow.

Sarasota and Manatee counties also are using scrap metal, waste oil and batteries to bring in cash, or at least subsidize the cost of hauling waste.

Manatee County receives about $30,000 a year selling scrap metal from appliances such as refrigerators and stoves.

Sarasota County runs its own curbside recycling program, and its $4 million cost is mitigated by about $1.1 million in revenue from recyclables. The county also receives about $10,000 a year from recycling motor oil and batteries.

Used motor oil and batteries have only recently become valuable commodities, as the prices of oil, copper and other metals have risen.

"For years we hadn't received anything for motor oil -- same thing for batteries," said Lois Rose, Sarasota County's hazardous waste manager.

Charlotte County's noncurbside recycling program collects appliances, waste oil, batteries, unused paint and traditional recyclables such as glass and cans.

Called a convenience center, the dropoff spot is used by residents who do not want to wait for curbside pick-up or who are going on vacation and do not want to leave behind a pile of recyclables.

The county has two convenience centers, one in Murdock and one in Englewood.

The Englewood center is undergoing renovation, but once work is complete, it will operate like the one in Murdock.

The county receives about $68 a ton for metals that contain iron and $2,500 for every trash bin full of metals such as aluminum, stainless steel, copper and brass.

Wayne Stoquert, solid waste resource supervisor for the county, said he ships a trash bin full of noniron metals about once every two weeks.

Stoquert, an environmental manager in the private sector for 10 years, helped make the convenience center more cost-efficient.

Before he was hired last year, the county earned only about $100 a month from recycling, Kula said.

The county also paid a lot more for disposing hazardous waste.

For instance, the county had been paying $11,000 a year for waste haulers to take away spray paint cans that still contained paint and other aerosols. Stoquert bought a $488 machine that pops open spray paint cans to drain the paint into a drum.

The county still pays to get rid of the paint, and cans of aerosols such as hairspray, but the spray paint cans are recycled.

Diverting items such as spray paint cans away from waste saves about $4,000 to $5,000 a month.

Another program, a reuse shop, begins in November and promises to save the county even more. The county will store items dropped off by residents, including containers of window cleaner, antifreeze, unused motor oil and half-used cans of paint. The products will be given free to anyone who wants them.

Sarasota County already has such a shop.

"If you needed some brake fluid and you didn't want to go buy it, you could go to the reuse shop," Rose said.

This month, Sarasota County will start convenience centers similar to Charlotte's.

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