It’s more expensive to recycle an empty Pepsi bottle than it is to throw it in the trash. And Weber School District in northern Utah can no longer afford it.
The school district announced this week that, because of rising costs, it would be cutting back recycling efforts at all 50 of its schools and office buildings. Paper is still OK. Cardboard, too.
“It really came down to a financial decision — a very unpopular one,” said Lane Findlay, the district’s spokesman. “But we had to do it.”
When the district launched its recycling program in 2011, it saved about $14,000 a year — paying less for garbage pick-up and collecting a few eco-friendly cash incentives.