FAQs: Recycling in Elkins, WV, Summer 2025

Given the questions residents have received about the current state of recycling in Elkins, the City Clerk office’s staff compiled this list of frequently asked questions (FAQs).

Recycling is a common goal; the path to achieving it is complex and often misunderstood. The City of Elkins is committed to providing clear, honest answers about what is currently possible with our recycling options and the significant economic challenges that stand in the way of expansion. Below, we address your most frequent questions to provide clarity on this challenge.

1. The City of Elkins currently offers glass recycling and accepts yard waste for composting. Why doesn’t Elkins accept other materials for recycling, such as paper, cardboard, plastics, and cans?

Recycling programs depend on economic feasibility, market demand for materials, and local infrastructure. All three of these factors pose obstacles to expanding recycling in Elkins. Offering a more comprehensive recycling program would cost much more than it would save the City. Covering those costs would either require a new fee or diverting money away from current municipal services and operations.  

One widespread misconception is that recycling is a revenue generator for municipalities. The reality is that for most U.S. towns and cities, recycling is on the debit side of the ledger, not credit side. In fact, by the time the global pandemic affected the U.S., recycling was no longer cost-effective for most local governments. 

But even before the pandemic, many municipalities struggled maintaining their recycling programs. Across the U.S., many recycling programs collapsed after China’s 2018 import restrictions, which the country called “Operation National Sword.” Malaysia also recently banned the import of plastic recyclables. With almost no buyers for materials, once-profitable recycling programs have shut down.  

The most realistic path to expanding recycling in Elkins would involve a new fee charged to residents and business owners. 

Read on for more details. 

2. What happened to the previous recycling center?

Elkins has operated glass and yard waste drop-off sites since 2017.  

Prior to 2024, however, additional recyclables were accepted at the Randolph County Recycling Center, on Eleventh Street. Despite its name, the Randolph County Recycling Center was a private business. Further, the West Virginia Wood Technology Center provided business incubator space for this business.

Partly because of the collapse of the market for recyclables in the United States and the difficulty of retaining staff, the Randolph County Recycling Center closed in 2024. Keep in mind, this business proved unviable despite paying below-market rent in a business incubator space. If its costs had not been subsidized in this way, it might have been forced to close its operations even sooner. 

3. What materials CAN be recycled in Elkins now?

Elkins offers glass recycling and receives yard waste for composting, at a site behind the Street Department building at 1 Baxter Street.

The City’s Operations Department makes arrangement to transport the yard waste to a City of Clarksburg composting facility.

The glass is collected periodically, at intervals determined by the City’s current vendor.

4. Has the City of Elkins explored expanding its current recycling program?

In 2023, Elkins explored contracting with a private vendor to expand drop-off recycling options to include cardboard, office paper, and aluminum and metal recycling. In addition to around $30,000 in startup costs and the periodic service fees that would be due to the vendor for emptying containers, the City found that its current glass and yard-waste drop-off site would not be large enough for any additional containers.  

So, new land would need to be purchased to house such a facility. One or more additional employees might also be needed to monitor and maintain the site.  

This vendor—the only one we are aware of providing this service in our area—did not offer to recycle plastics, citing a lack of market interest. 

5. Why is it so difficult to recycle plastics?

Plastics are not currently recyclable at a mass scale due to collapsed markets and contamination issues. In fact, less than 10% of all plastics in the U.S. are recycled, depending on the source cited. Most plastics go into landfill; some are incinerated. Therein lies another challenge with recycling: most recycling programs will not accept items that are not completely washed free of any debris, i.e., food particles. So, despite consumers’ best intentions, dirty containers that otherwise could have been recycled end up landfilled or incinerated. 

Also, there is almost no market for recycled plastics. Of the seven types of plastics that store consumer products, only one or two are considered economically recyclable, and even these two experience highly fluctuating market demand. With no buyers for processed plastics, collecting them is of little interest to commercial waste companies and would not be an effective use of the City’s resources. 

6. Will curbside recycling be offered? 

There are no private companies that offer this service in this area as they would not be able to cover the costs of operation with the volume of recyclables that they would collect.  

For the City to offer this service, it would need to purchase trucks and hire new employees. This is not realistic at a time when the City needs to figure out how to fund and staff a new stormwater department, among other urgent staffing needs. 

7. Who pays for recycling?

Recycling is not a cost-saving service for the City, so it would require some new sources of revenues. Obtaining these funds would require either cutting other municipal services or imposing a recycling fee on utility bills.  

A fee would likely be unpopular, however, because—unlike sanitation, water, and wastewater services—not everyone would make use of recycling services, so some people would object to helping pay for them. 

Key Takeaways:   

• Recycling is not without cost. Someone along the recycling value chain is paying for it. If recycling is not profitable for someone along that chain, recycling stops.  

• Markets and costs drive what is possible, no matter how passionately people may want to make it work. Despite some positive effects of recycling—namely the reduction of waste otherwise headed to landfills—these benefits don’t balance the added costs in all cases. Ultimately, economics are the driving factor dictating whether recycling can succeed in cities and towns like Elkins. 

• There is not a strong market for recycled plastics in our area. 

• Participation and cooperation from the county, state, and private sector are critical for long-term waste management solutions. 

• Reducing waste is more about changing consumer behavior, and less about recycling or using what most of us assume to be “green” or “sustainable” packaging. 

Residents who have ideas that they believe are cost effective and can help the City of Elkins better manage waste are always welcome to share their ideas. To share comments or ideas, please contact the City Clerk’s office.