Though her trips to the recycling center are few and far between, retired Lubbock school teacher Carol Ratliff said she tries to do her best to keep her plastic and paper items out of the landfills.
"I think we all need to do our part," Ratliff said. "There are some things that aren't difficult to do, so I do what I can within my limitations."
But despite growing interest like Ratliff's in the environmental benefits of recycling, programs around the world are feeling the effects of a dwindling commodities market that determines the resale value of reusable goods.
Prices for common recyclable materials like aluminum, copper and stainless steel have dropped as much as 80 percent since October, mirroring the declining global economy.
Recycling in Lubbock, operated by the city's solid-waste department, was projecting a 46 percent increase in 2007-08 for revenue generated by recycling, but officials may be looking at lowered numbers in the coming months if commodities continue to stay low, said Penny Morin, customer service supervisor for the program.
"If the market prices keep going down, that's going to affect us budgetwise as less revenue comes in," Morin said. "We're at the mercy of the market."
With a more than $480,000 budget for the 2007-2008 year, any drop in revenue could possibly affect the program, which already doesn't come close to covering its costs, Morin said, including the additional cost of having to store items that could be turned down in the future by scrapping businesses.
Recyclers, however, are no strangers to downturns in the market, said Richard Abramowitz, a representative with Recycle America. Because of the generally tumultuous commodities market, many scrapping businesses are more than prepared to wait out the lowered prices until demand increases for raw materials.
"The difference here is that it happened so quickly," Abramowitz said of the commodity downturn. "Usually we get three or four months, but this time we only got three or four weeks."
Because of the widespread nature of the issue, Abramowitz said it's hard to determine how local recyclers will respond, but if budgets continue to tighten in the coming year he said he fears there could be cuts to smaller programs.
"Some communities will start taking a real hard look at it and having real, bare-knuckled discussions about what they're going to do," he said.
For those who recycle like Ratliff, the thought of a smaller recycling program is less than ideal.
I hope that eventually it turns around and we're all able to recycle what we're able to recycle," she said. "Without a recycling plant, that would be very difficult."