[speaker001:] uh do you have any recycling going on in your community
[speaker002:] uh yes we do we've started out with uh um all the waste haulers have uh been authorized or commanded I'll put it that way to pick up uh lots of different kinds of waste
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] and they uh uh the result has been that they have increased their rates by about three times uh
[speaker001:] oh
[speaker002:] and uh so now you have all kinds of of uh things they didn't use to pick up like magazines and uh various forms of of uh glass tin and things like that
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] uh
[speaker001:] so they used to pick this stuff up but just throw it away but
[speaker002:] well no in a a long time ago you didn't uh they didn't pick up any of that and then uh they started to pick up a few things but lately they've gone in to it in a big way and they've said the uh they have to pick up
[speaker001:] oh really
[speaker002:] I think it's uh plastic and glass well plastic and magazines which uh in the past nobody picked up
[speaker001:] it's my impression that uh it's rare to find someone who will recycle magazines the glossy magazines yes
[speaker002:] yes
[speaker001:] uh and then they charge you for the service
[speaker002:] yes well now these so they're we're being charged because the rates have the trash uh pickup rates have gone up uh like I say almost by a factor of three for some people
[speaker001:] uh-huh was this something that was voted on or uh
[speaker002:] uh
[speaker001:] by the City Council or something
[speaker002:] the City Council did it they decided that there was
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] Portland is kind of a ecology minded area and so they uh
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] uh although there're some complaints because the there were volunteer agencies that would do it uh at a minimal charge and a lot of the the articles in the papers or the letters in the papers these days have suggested that the waste haulers now that they have a monopoly uh
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] uh
[speaker001:] they'd charge for it
[speaker002:] they charge
[speaker001:] whether you take advantage of it or not
[speaker002:] much more exorbitant rates than the uh than the volunteer you know you pay to have your magazines recycled that kind of thing
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] in the past they said well we we were paying far less to have our magazines recycled than we do now
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] because the waste hauling uh uh companies have a monopoly now
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] so they can you know it's the old thing about uh now that I have to do it uh they can they don't have to work very hard at at keeping costs down
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] so how about your area
[speaker001:] well we have uh some volunteer run recycling in some towns near here uh in our own neighborhood there's a private company that comes around once a week and uh picks up recyclables they do not pick up magazines uh and I believe they don't pick up the plastic I think it's the two categories you talked about it's just newspapers bottles cans and uh cardboard and it used to be free for a few weeks then they sent out little flyers saying hey we still want to do this for free but we're not quite making ends meet and we'll take donations and I I'm I don't not sure if anybody really sent the donations in to this private company just to be nice and I believe they're going to start charging now uh and I I'm not sure what we're going to do I mean it definitely diminishes the amount of trash we have to put out so it may work out monetarily okay for us to be charged for it uh and since they are private if they charge too much they'll people will just start throwing it in the trash
[speaker002:] of course around here we we have to pay for our trash pick up
[speaker001:] right we pay for our trash pickup but this isn't the trash people
[speaker002:] oh I see what you're saying
[speaker001:] this is another this is uh um Carl Carl's recycling and uh he comes around with a truck of his own so it's completely uh private and nonmandatory and people just put things out on the curb um he's competing with some uh very small scale people who go around with shopping carts about an hour before his truck comes and try to get the most valuable recyclables so it's uh
[speaker002:] the thing that that has uh another thing that's been in the press here has been that uh with the volume of recyclables coming in the the prices have dropped so that they can't even pay for the uh
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] how should I say it the market can't absorb all of the uh
[speaker001:] yes yes I've heard that that yeah it's uh they have all this used newsprint that people don't want right
[speaker002:] right and certain kinds of glass uh the green glass has no market it's piling up I don't know where they get green glass I guess they get it from