Point Boro, Point Beach Get Thousands Back in Recycling Revenue from Ocean County

Ocean County is sending $31,689 to Point Borough and $11,854 to Point Beach in recycling revenue.

Jude Walker, the recycling official in , said the revenue will go into the general fund and will be used to help pay for staff salaries and possibly other expenses of the recycling program.

John Trout, the Point Beach Department of Public Works director, said the money will be used to help run the department, but that no specific plans have been made.

The county is sending a record $917,436 back to local governments throughout the county based on the amount of items each town recycled.

“We haven’t missed a dividend payment since we’ve been in business,’’ said Freeholder James F. Lacey of the county’s recycling program that cashed in for a record sum during the first six months of the year.

More than 35,300 tons of what once was bound for dumps in the county were sent for reuse since January.

That is after the county took a share of the money to continue running the massive materials processing center in Lakewood that readies everything from broken bottles to aluminum for the market.

Recycling became the chief waste disposal strategy of county officials in the late 1980s, when voters rejected plans for a massive trash incinerator in Waretown about the time the state Department of Environmental Protection was closing but one of the landfills in the county.

The recycling effort is designed to prolong the life of that private dump, the Ocean County Landfill in Manchester Township, where local governments pay to dump their waste.

The first six months of recycling this year cut the landfill tab to local governments by $2.5 million, according to Lacey.

Over the life of the recycling program, he said, the dumping fee savings are $95 million.

Changes in how materials are sold to recyclers meant more money, Lacey said. Buying a baler to compress paper and cardboard upped the per ton price being paid to the county for cardboard by $34 a ton, to $212.

Aluminum is bringing $1,453 per ton, newspapers $181 per ton, and tin cans $301 per ton.

“These were not the busiest months,’’ for recycling, he said of the period ending June 30.

The summer months produce more recyclables and, if the market for them remains strong, could produce an even bigger dividend at the end of the year.

Toms River is receiving $183,806, Lakewood $140,141, and Brick $100,222. Berkeley is in line for $48,109, Lacey for $48,077, Manchester for $39,362 and Barnegat's cut is $31,089.

Like much of the county, the Borough and the Beach offer single-stream recycling so that all of the following types of items can all go in one can for curbside pickup:

Glass: Bottles & Jars Only

Cans: Tin, Aluminum, Bi-Metal

Plastics: Beverage, Bleach, Shampoo, Empty Aerosol Cans, Magazines, Catalogs, Junk Mail, Paperback Books, Shredded Paper, Newspapers and Corrugated Cardboard (cut to fit into container.)