MARQUETTE — Marquette County is one step closer to implementing single-stream and glass recycling.

The Marquette County Solid Waste Management Authority Board of Trustees at its meeting Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution that will increase solid waste tipping fees by $6 a ton to support the program.

The resolution also authorizes the board enter an agreement with the Closed Loop Fund for a $3 million interest-free loan that will help pay for equipment needed for single-stream recycling and use the funds from the increased tipping fee to repay the Closed Loop Fund loan, with remaining funds, if any, to be used for general operations. The increased tipping fees will be effective in November, officials said.

“I’m very pleased that this went through tonight,” authority board Chairman Randall Yelle said, noting the single-stream and glass recycling program wouldn’t be possible without the passage of the resolution.

The $3 million loan from CLF, along with a $1 million grant from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy are critical pieces of funding for the $5.9 million project, Yelle said, as the CLF loan will fund the equipment necessary to move to single stream and the grant will fund renovations needed at the landfill to support the new equipment.

With the passage of the resolution, Yelle expects the grant and loan to be finalized and awarded in early June, as increasing tipping fees gives the authority a method to fund the loan payback, which could begin in July. The increased tipping fees are expected to generate around $300,000 a year, the amount the landfill would need to pay annually for the 10-year, $3 million loan.

“This is coming all together, it took a long, long time,” Yelle said. “But the resolution is our final step prior to getting the $1 million grant from the (DEGLE) and the $3 million from the Closed Loop.”

Beyond the CLF and DEGLE funding, the authority is looking into several options to fund the remaining $1.9 million, including potential additional state funds, a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant or loan and/or a private loan through a local credit union, Yelle said.

The authority oversees the Marquette County Landfill, which serves residents of the county’s municipalities. It does not currently recycle glass and uses a dual-stream recycling system that requires rigid and fiber materials to be separated and picked up on alternating weeks. The single-stream system to be funded would allow both material types to be picked up weekly, as well as glass.

While the current recycling participation in Marquette County is about 8%, the resolution states the adoption of single-stream and glass recycling would “significantly benefit the citizens of Marquette County by increasing the recycling rate.”

If the new program increases the recycling rate as expected, it is estimated that the program will extend the landfill’s life by at least two years per cell and add a total of 12 years to the life of the landfill, according to the resolution.

The decision to increase tipping fees comes after the authority board’s pursuit of a county-wide millage to support the single-stream recycling program.

The authority board had approved a resolution to place the millage on the ballot in March and requested approval in April from the Marquette County Board of Commissioners to place the millage on the ballot.

However, the county board decided at its April 16 meeting that the county board did not have the legal authority to place the proposed millage on the Aug. 6 ballot.

The authority board at its April 17 meeting then discussed alternate funding avenues, such as increasing the tipping fee or asking the county board to use Sec. 8 of the Urban Cooperation Act — which gives a county board the authority to impose a surcharge of not more than $2 a month or $25 annually — to add a fee of $9 a year per household to support the program.

Landfill officials also met with constituent municipalities during a Marquette County Township Association meeting to discuss the options with municipalities.

“The majority of the municipalities that contacted me favored the tipping fee,” Yelle said, noting the authority had received letters of non-support from three municipalities in regards to the proposed millage.

Furthermore, Yelle said increasing the tipping fee — rather than enacting a millage or the Urban Cooperation Act — to pay for single-stream and glass recycling can distribute the cost more equitably among users.

“The property owners, they pay the millage. So the people that don’t pay millage are still using the landfill and getting it for nothing. The Urban Cooperation Act, that falls on the backs of the single-family homeowners,” Yelle said. “The tipping fees, in my opinion, is more favorable — is more fairly separated out — because it’s the people that are using the facility that are paying for it.”

Once the 10-year, $3 million loan is paid off, the additional $6 per ton tipping fee for solid waste will no longer be charged, but as soon as the program is enacted, recycling tipping fees for Marquette County will be eliminated. The landfill’s constituent municipalities pay tipping fees directly to the landfill, said Brad Austin, director of the Marquette County Solid Waste Management Authority.

“Although the tipping fee is going up, if your community doubles their recycling rate and there’s no tipping fees on recyclable material, is your tipping fee really going up? Probably not,” Austin said.

There will be a $20 per ton tipping fee for out-of-county recycling, which the authority believes can be attractive by offering single-stream and glass recycling in a central U.P. location, Yelle said.

Beyond attracting regional recycling, Yelle said the new system will also allow the landfill to attract commercial single-stream recycling, which is currently sent to regional single-stream recycling facilities outside of the county.

The landfill plans to put out a construction request for proposals in June, order equipment in July, install the single-stream equipment in February, then install the glass equipment in spring 2020, Austin said.

They plan to start processing single-stream material in late 2020, Yelle said, noting “the glass should be sooner than the single stream, but they’ll both be in effect by late 2020.”

As the process moves forward, Austin said it will be vital to begin educating residents about single-stream and glass recycling.

“There’s a significant outreach campaign and education campaign that will commence upon this all coming together,” Austin said.

Cecilia Brown can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 248.