> Those city departments responsible for trash pickup now incur significant costs, over and above what they would have to pay in the absence of recycling. These

> Those city departments responsible for trash pickup now incur significant costs, over and above what they would have to pay in the absence of recycling. These costs include the personnel and equipment for separate additional refuse collection (or payment to a contractor to provide the service), as well as the cost of paying firms to accept recyclables, now that they no longer can be profitably resold. > Some recyclables — notably, aluminum cans — continue to have a relatively high market value. But they are mixed with other materials that have little value and therefore require expensive sorting. https://www.manhattan-institute.org/recycling-cost-benefit-analysis https://www.manhattan-institute.org/recycling-cost-benefit-a... So, cities pay for recycling to be collected, and then after that pay some company to take it off their hands. They used to not pay much for the latter, sometimes even zero, if enough aluminum could be recovered. But now, they pay for it to be taken too. These companies that take the recycling, try to make some profit from the money they are paid, and the materials. They also have to look like they are actually recycling. So they used to just spend some of the money (which they are paid by the city, and some from the pure aluminum they can separate) to ship the worthless stuff to China for "recycling" ... and what's left over is profit. EDIT: better specific data: > Boston then pays a private firm, Casella Waste Systems, to sort and sell the materials when there is a buyer, or otherwise dispose of them. > The price that the city must pay Casella to accept these recyclables has been rising, partly because some 25% of the materials are contaminated. A five-year “residential recycling processing contract” that expired in 2019 called on the city to pay $70 per ton for that service;[18] a new contract signed in 2019 increased that fee to a minimum of $125 per ton and a maximum of $160 per ton—depending on market conditions.