Bins for various recyclable materials are seen Tuesday at Parkersburg’s municipal recycling facility off 24th Street. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

PARKERSBURG — The city of Parkersburg’s Municipal Recycling Facility is no longer accepting materials from commercial haulers, a practice for which Mayor Tom Joyce said Parkersburg has not been compensated over the years.

“I believe, our ordinance, we were never supposed to do commercial service anyway. But we did,” said Joyce.

Since well before he took office in 2017, Joyce said, companies that collect recycling for other municipalities had brought their material to Parkersburg’s 24th Street municipal recycling facility, often referred to as the MRF. And those companies have not been charged.

Joyce said haulers were notified before Halloween that the center would stop taking their materials as of Dec. 1.

Among those affected is Haul Away Trash, which provides curbside recycling in Vienna. That, in turn, has impacted that city’s recycling program.

A sign posted at Parkersburg’s municipal recycling facility off 24th Street notifies commercial haulers the city will no longer accept materials from commercial haulers. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

“We didn’t have anywhere now that our provider could take their recycling,” Mayor Chad Emrick said in a video posted to the city of Vienna’s Facebook page. “We really are trying to figure out how we work around this curveball, with the recycling center in Parkersburg not being available anymore.”

Sorting the material brought in by commercial haulers is a “labor-intensive process,” Joyce said, noting the facility has no automatic sorting.

“We recently did a deep dive into the operations of the MRF and found that it was hugely expensive,” he said.

From fiscal year 2019 to fiscal year 2025, which ended June 30, the MRF has had an operating deficit of nearly $3.8 million, Joyce said. During that period, the sale of recyclable material generated anywhere from $44,898 to $209,807 a year, for a total of $722,153.

“We should not be subsidizing … the greater Mid-Ohio Valley,” Joyce said.

A sign posted at Parkersburg’s municipal recycling facility off 24th Street notifies commercial haulers the city will no longer accept materials from commercial haulers. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

Joyce said the subject of charging the commercial haulers had not been broached because there is no equipment at the MRF to weigh materials until after they have been sorted.

“We don’t have the ability to weigh their trucks,” he said.

The numbers come as Parkersburg is seeking proposals for a subscription-based recycling service, under which residents who want curbside recycling could opt to pay an additional fee for the service. The request for proposals said only about 25% of households in the city participate in recycling, with Joyce saying the highest rate has been about 30%.

The city is in the process of negotiating with one of two private waste haulers who submitted proposals to take over the city’s sanitation service, which it has provided for years.

As the process continues, the MRF remains open around the clock for residential customers to drop off their recyclable materials.

In Vienna, Haul Away Trash has provided curbside recycling since 2008, co-owner Jon Ferguson said. They had delivered what they collected to the MRF, but with the policy change, they are taking materials to the Hanna Transfer Station in Marietta to be trucked to Rumpke’s Columbus facility, he said.

Parkersburg didn’t charge for accepting the material, but Haul Away must pay the transfer station $120 per ton it delivers from Vienna, Ferguson said.

That will affect the company’s budget and its ability to give bonuses to drivers, said Shawn Ferguson, Jon Ferguson’s wife and co-owner of Haul Away. They’ve had to increase pay to retain workers, she said, referencing the staffing issues Parkersburg cited when it suspended its curbside recycling service in May.

One change is that they are no longer accepting glass or cardboard and paper that is wet, in an effort to reduce weight and therefore costs, Shawn Ferguson said. Parkersburg not charging to accept recyclable materials is “the reason we were able to keep the rates so low” for Vienna, she said.

Recycling is getting to the point that only larger companies can make money off of it, Jon Ferguson said.

“There’s not a lot of money in it for the little guy,” he said.

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com

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In Related News…

A city resident and attorney has filed suit claiming Parkersburg’s suspension of curbside recycling violates state code.

Walt Auvil filed suit in July in Wood County Circuit Court, claiming the move is a violation of a West Virginia law requiring cities with a population of more than 10,000 to implement a curbside recycling program.

The city said in its response that it “has only suspended the recycling program due to circumstances beyond its control.” No decision has been made in the case.