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A NEWS: Local 3A
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IT&rsquo;S TIME to get serious &ndash; really serious &ndash; about recycling. 
My organization, the Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association, represents private-sector waste haulers, recyclers and landfill operators. We support recycling &ndash; we&rsquo;re in the business, after all &ndash; but we&rsquo;re opposed to new taxes for it. 
The Pennsylvania Legislature is considering House Bill 1069 (and other similar bills) that would enable Pennsylvania counties to institute a tax of up to $4 per ton on municipal waste to help support local recycling programs.
HB1069 calls the levy a &ldquo;fee.&rdquo; In reality, of course, it&rsquo;s a tax. Legislators want to be able to say they didn&rsquo;t vote for any new taxes so they simply change the name.
We&rsquo;ve been down this road before. It&rsquo;s time for the Legislature to live up to its original goal: to make recycling financially self-supporting. 
For that to happen, private enterprise needs to be more involved. And they&rsquo;re never going to be willing to invest more money when they&rsquo;ve got to compete with local programs that are subsidized by tax dollars.
When the Legislature passed Act 101 in 1988, it established a $2-per-ton statewide tax on trash to help get the infrastructure for recycling established. The Legislature said then, and reiterated in 2002, that it expected recycling to become &ldquo;financially self-sufficient.&rdquo; 
The $2-per-ton tax is still on the books, and we have no quarrel with that. This year it will generate an estimated $41 million for the state Recycling Fund. The money in that fund goes to counties and municipalities to help support their local recycling programs. But now they want an added layer of government tax money. We think that&rsquo;s a bad idea.
A number of counties previously tried to levy a local tax on trash. Commonwealth Court ruled they had no authority to do so and said the tax was illegal. Some proponents of the current effort claim they just want to &ldquo;reinstate&rdquo; what existed before. Legally, nothing existed before. HB1069 and similar bills would create a new tax.
Our members believe recycling can be made not only self-sustaining but also profitable. 
 Our commitment is evident. PWIA member companies have invested more than $30 million in recycling facilities and equipment in Pennsylvania in the last three years. Those are private-sector dollars, not tax dollars. 
And we&rsquo;ve seen that private-sector recycling works. The privatization of recycling in Mercer and Crawford counties last year by a PWIA member company resulted in 50 percent and 65 percent reductions in costs, respectively.
Right now, the taxes on a ton of trash in Pennsylvania average out to $8.58. Another $4 on top of that would be an increase of 47 percent.
Now is hardly the time for any kind of tax increase, one that ultimately would come out of the pockets of residential customers and businesses.
A tax that discourages private enterprise and moves us farther away from the Legislature&rsquo;s goal of financial self-sufficiency for recycling is a doubly bad idea. 
We hope you will add your voice to the debate. We urge you to take the time and effort to express your opposition to another new tax.


Now is hardly the time for any kind of tax increase, one that ultimately would come out of the pockets of residential customers and businesses.

Recycling Programs Need To Become Self-sufficient Commentary Tim O’donnell