After Aug. 1, until new recycling markets are found, this may be the only type of recyclable material permitted in Silver City recycling bins. It's corrugated cardboard, and not the same as that found in, for instance, cereal boxes.

By Mary Alice Murphy

Silver City Town Manager Alex Brown clarified that the town is until Aug. 1 accepting all recyclables. Assistant Town Manager says the town continues to be "as committed to recycling as in the past. We are aggressively seeking new markets."

However, after Aug. 1, unless and until some of the options the town is exploring work out, the town will accept only corrugated cardboard.

"Actually, accepting only corrugated cardboard, we will still lose money, but not as much," Brown said. "We're working hard to keep recycling in Silver City. We're working with the Las Cruces landfill and the New Mexico Recycling Coalition to find markets for other items. We are also identifying what we can do with the Legislature to fix issues. We are working from all sides of the spectrum."

Silver City Mayor Ken Ladner said the reason why recycling has become a problem is that most of it went to China to process. "China has stopped buying recyclables. Because of that our source that we have been sending recycling to in Tucson has stopped taking our recyclables. We had to pay $6,000 to take our most recent load."

He noted that a market exists for aluminum cans, but the town needs to determine how and where to send the items. Ladner said China's story was that the recyclables they received were so dirty that it cost too much to clean them before they were usable.

Marshall called the issue "an absolute insult on recycling. We're extremely frustrated."

He said cottage industries have sprung up to use recycled materials. "We were working with a company using a tested process to create plastic pellets to be used in place of lumber. We wanted to set up a plant here, but they quit answering our calls. When we asked them why, they told us the permitting process in New Mexico with the New Mexico Environment Department cost too much and took too long, so they went to Arizona instead because it was more efficient to get permitting there."

Brown said one of the reasons why the city will continue to accept at least the corrugated cardboard is that "we worked too hard to develop our successful program. If we stopped all recycling, no one would ever recycle again."

Ladner agreed with the comment and said: "We owe it to the community to find other alternatives."