Price Drop Drives Away Recyclers of Newspapers : Glut: The supply of newsprint mushroomed as curbside recycling became popular. But industry demand for it has not been very high.
The price paid for recycled newspapers has plunged in recent years and may drop further before rebounding, according to the author of a state report on newspaper recycling due out Thursday.
As a result, many community groups that recycled newspapers as fund raisers have quit. Even the Boy Scouts have dropped out. The last of the troops in the Western Los Angeles County Council of the Boy Scouts, which includes the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, quit recycling papers earlier this year.
“The newspapers are paying $5 a ton,” said Karen Judisch, who works with the council. “To try and get that amount and be scoutmaster or cubmaster using all that gas, it just isn’t worth it. It’s really a shame.”
A telephone survey of recycling centers in the San Fernando Valley found that those still accepting papers paid about $10 a ton, or a half-cent per pound. Three years ago, centers were paying between $20 and $40 per ton.
The price of recycled newsprint dropped during the second quarter of 1990, after remaining stable through the previous three quarters, according to the recycling report prepared by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, the agency recently created to bring about a statewide reduction in the amount of waste going to landfills.
The supply of used newsprint has mushroomed as curbside recycling programs have proliferated, industry officials note. At the same time, publishers have failed to switch to using recycled newsprint, and demand from other industrial consumers has dropped.
The soft market is old news to area recyclers and paper companies. Bob Fagan, president of Sun Valley Paper Stock, a Sunland firm that buys old newspapers from recycling centers and sells it to paper mills in Asia, said the price of “super-clean” recycled newsprint has dropped from $127 a ton a year ago to $30 a ton today.
The result locally is that some recyclers have stopped accepting newspaper. Marv Saidner of San Fernando Recycling in Pacoima said his firm stopped taking newspapers four years ago. Now, he said, he concentrates on recycling aluminum cans and California redemption containers.
Other area recycling companies still accept papers, but no longer pay for them. “We essentially lose money on it,” said Dave Sanders, branch accountant for Burbank Recycling, which stopped paying for newsprint over a year ago. The cost of transporting the paper to processing factories is greater than the amount his company receives for the product, Sanders said.
Those companies that absorb the cost of accepting old newsprint said they do so primarily to keep their customers bringing in other recyclable goods that remain profitable. “We do it more for customer service,” said Ron Schweitzer, president of Mobile Recycling, a regional firm that accepts a variety of recyclable products. “Our whole business philosophy is to be a one-stop recycling center. It’s sort of a form of advertising.”
A major factor that may cause the excess supply of recycled newspaper to grow even more is a new state law requiring cities to reduce significantly the amount of trash they dump in landfills over the next decade, said Brian Foran, associate waste management specialist for the waste board and the author of the state report.
But another new statute designed to strengthen demand for used newsprint may cause prices to eventually rebound. That law requires commercial printers to use at least 25% recycled newsprint as of Jan. 1, 1991, and at least 50% by Jan. 1, 2000. Increased demand for recycled paper may also come from mills planned for construction that process used newsprint.
“Within three years, I’m sure the markets are going to be real healthy,” Foran said.
