Chambers County halts some recycling

Chambers County will no longer recycle paper and plastic at some public buildings because of rising recycling costs and long distances for drivers in the rural county.

The county’s Solid Waste department said Thursday it would remove recycling bins at about a dozen schools and buildings across the county, the second smallest in the greater Houston area. Officials say they hope the cost-cutting measure is temporary, county spokesperson Samantha Humphrey said Thursday afternoon.

“We want to be good stewards of the land and Earth,” Humphrey said. “Unfortunately that is contrary to our responsibility to taxpayers.”

The cutback comes as gasoline prices surge in Houston and across the U.S., driving up the cost of trash collection. Gas prices in the region are still running $1.62 a gallon higher than a year ago, recordhighs that threaten recession and deep economic pain.

Meanwhile, the beleaguered recycling industry is struggling to adapt as China, which previously accepted much of the world’s plastic waste, limits imports and as highvolume packaging proliferates amid the pandemic’s online shopping boom.

A Houston Chronicle report found that as much as 37 percent of what people recycle is really trash. This imbalance means more work sorting out bad items at the recycling plant and time spent hauling them to a landfill.

Chambers County’s “hard decision” to stop collecting recyclables at some public buildings will enable officials to reduce costs by cutting down on the total volume of waste headed to local recycling centers, Humphrey said. The county “is very rural” and the long distances between schools and other buildings became untenable, she said.

“We hope we can find a solution,” Humphrey said.