At the height of the pandemic, Memphis did stop recycling. “Two months into it, the city of Memphis had manpower issues, just like everybody else. And there was a time that they announced that they did have to send everything [to the landfill] just to make sure that people’s trash got picked up,” says Jason West, general manager for Republic Services, which sorts and processes the city of Memphis’ recycling. That was five years ago, but Memphis has not stopped recycling since.
Even so, West says, some people still believe that their recycling goes to the landfill, in part because of this Covid-related decision. “That kind of damage to the public perception, we will never do that again,” he says. “Two years ago, we had a big issue out here on the floor. We were working with the city. If we hadn’t gotten it fixed within the next 12 hours, we were already in contact with our Dallas plant. We were going to send the recycling down there so they could process it, just because of that public perception from that two months.”
Currently, West estimates that “about 10 to 12 percent of what can be recycled is [recycled in Memphis]. … Twenty-five percent is the goal where you want to be, and then 50 percent would be considered world-class.”
Another issue is that some of the recycling that Republic Services receives is contaminated. “You’d be surprised to see the stuff people put in recycling,” says Josh Kirkpatrick, Republic Services supervisor. “Car batteries, knives, bowling balls. Stuff like that tears our systems up, and we have a front line set up with people presorting.”
“About 32 percent of what we’re getting here ends up at the land
fill because it’s trash,” West adds.
“If we get the contamination down, I think that’ll help a lot, and then get more participation and let people know we actually do recycle, that’ll help, too,” says Kirkpatrick. “Memphis recycles. It doesn’t recycle well.”
To combat this, Republic Services has engaged in several educational initiatives, working with schools and presenting to organizations. Within the past year or so, Republic Services has also partnered with Clean Memphis to offer free tours of its recycling facility to the general public, complete with a presentation on recycling and waste management. “It’s a lot more complex than you would think,” West says. “Usually people leave with some kind of bewilderment.”
To sign up for one of these tours, offered monthly and sometimes twice-monthly, visit tinyurl.com/2rz6vx75.
To find out more about how and what to recycle, visit tinyurl.com/mz3nenx6.
Clean Memphis + Republic Services – Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) Tour, Republic Services, 3197 Farrisview Blvd., Thursday, March 13th, 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m. | Thursday, March 27th, 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m. | Thursday, April 24th, 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m., free.
