Why is Waste Management turning a Big Profit while Recycling Revenues are Struggling
In region across Canada, waste management companies are seeing revenues soar. After all, waste management seems to be some pretty big business! Comparatively, recycling seems to be struggling as a cost-viable option.
Why recycling revenues are so much lower than waste management profits for disposal companies can be attributed to many different reasons. The biggest reason seemingly appears to be contamination rates having increased in Canada in the past decade. As more municipalities have turned to recycling, the level of education on what to recycle has not necessarily followed the expansion. Thereby, contamination rates can be as high as 40 percent in some regions. Though recycling is a righteous goal, there needs to be more effort made to lower contamination rates. As contamination is allowed to continue to happen at such high percentages, this has a significant financial impact on recycling revenues.
In addition to contamination being an issue, transportation costs for recycling are an issue. Waste management processes have been ongoing for decades while some recycling processes are still new. This means having to transport materials across further distances to get them to reach the assigned recycling plants. Ideally, in the future, there will be more localized recycling processes with a wider variety of facilities to accommodate all kinds of different materials. Further adding to recycling operating costs, what one can get for the material recycled has shrunk comparatively to last year. Some commodity prices have fallen by as much as 36 percent compared to last year, meaning the materials recycled are not able to be sold at the same rates and thus providing lower returns.
Taking all this into consideration, when one factors in possible expansion costs, increased operating costs, and increased processing fees, recycling can end up being a very expensive endeavor for some companies.
Why companies and municipalities are continuing to pursue recycling processes for profit is because this is going to be the future of waste management in Canada and the United States. Recycling is a steady investment for the future and marks a path towards improving revenues. Landfills may in fact become a thing of the past as more societies are moving towards zero waste. There are some in the waste management industry who believe it to be a matter of time before recycling overtakes landfill disposal as the favored revenue waste category.
Across the world, there is a lot of prominent research, development, and investment being made into recycling. Though waste management is where the big profits are at, companies are re-investing. Today, waste disposal is being de-refined as a process by which materials can be recycled, repurposed, and reused. Even as soon as 2025, things will have moved to more reprocessing materials rather than dumping.
As a Toronto recycling and waste management company, Core Mini Bins strongly believes that the future of waste management is not in landfills. There’s so much opportunity to recycle and repurpose materials out there, and we are proud to be one of the companies doing so. For all of your residential, commercial, or industrial waste management needs, please get in touch. We would be happy to discuss with you your options for waste disposal and recycling, and to provide competitive rates for a premium, high quality Toronto waste management service.
