Bill Casey's trash talk with the County Board's finance committee Thursday came with more than a touch of gloom.

Last fall, the bottom dropped out of the prices that vendors paid the county for its recycled trash, including aluminum cans, tin-steel cans, plastic, paper and cardboard.

Casey, director of the county's solid waste department, said Thursday that although the prices for some recyclables are starting to creep back up, the county is still looking at a substantial loss in revenue from the sale of recycled rubbish.

The losses, Casey said, are far more severe than the typical seasonal up-and-down cycle in the prices of recyclables.

Example: By June 2008, the county had sold almost 2,100 tons of recyclable waste and earned about $211,503 in revenue.

For the same time period this year, however, the county had sold 1,917 tons, but earned only $67,757.

The tonnage of recyclables sold through June of this year is comparable to that of the first six months of 2008, Casey said, even though the county is holding on to some recyclables, such as tin and aluminum cans, in the hope of attaining a better price.

But the revenue this year is about one-third of what it was at this time last year.

In past budgets, Casey said, he's always low-balled his estimate of revenue from recyclables. For example, in 2007, the revenue goal was set at $250,000, but the county actually got $389,278.

This year's revenue goal from the proceeds of sales of recyclables is $315,000. With the year halfway gone, the revenue is a little more than one-fifth of the goal.

Casey said the past surpluses helped if repairs were needed at the city's solid waste facility

on Highway 16 in the town of Pacific, and the money that the county had allotted for repairs was either insufficient or already spent, Casey said.

But now he's looking at a breakdown in a 19-year-old machine at the solid waste facility. Although he does not yet know what the cost or scope of the repairs will turn out to be, Casey said, "This is the earliest in the year for me to be asking for money for maintenance."

Committee members asked what steps Casey was taking to lessen the loss.

One such step, Casey said, is to shop for vendors willing to pay a little more for recyclables than the county's usual vendors.

But that requires caution.

"The problem is," Casey said, "if you haven't dealt with the vendors before, you don't know if their check is going to clear the bank."

That's why he usually deals only with Wisconsin-based vendors.

The revenue stream soon could be affected permanently if the county decides to go to a single-stream recycling system - a decision that could be made in the next few weeks.

The county requires people to separate their recyclables according to type. With a single-stream system, all recyclable waste would be disposed of in one container, separated from nonrecyclable trash but not sorted by type.

Some communities, such as Madison, use a single-stream system because more people tend to recycle if they don't have to sort their trash.

But, Casey said, payment for all recyclables disposed of via a single-stream system is based on the going rate for paper, which is running about $31.50 per ton. Under the county's current system, each type of recyclable material is paid for according to the going rate for that specific material - which, in past years, meant substantially higher revenue, though with the current price drop, that's no longer the case.

The County Board's solid waste committee is expected to discuss a single-stream system in more depth at its meeting Tuesday, Casey said. A final decision is likely in August, so that it can be incorporated into the department's 2010 budget proposal.

ljerde@capitalnewspapers.com

745-3587