Recycling Fees Rise for Sioux Falls, Iowa Haulers

The change at Millennium comes about a year after Advanced Recycling Systems began charging a per-ton fee. Until then, all recycling loads were free to drop off for the city's nearly two dozen trash haulers.

The culprit in both cases is glass, which is heavier, harder to clean and more difficult to sell than other products. The market is so tight at this point that a share of the glass collected in Sioux Falls now ends up at the landfill for re-use.

Unlike cardboard, office paper and plastic bottles, glass isn’t banned from the landfill. Recycling centers still take it because customers want to recycle it, Millennium CEO Jake Anderson said, but it’s never been a money-maker.

“In the past, there was enough value in other recyclable materials to offset the challenges of processing glass,” Anderson said. “However, today’s recycling landscape has forced us to implement a new rate structure in Sioux Falls.”