Boston City Councilor Matt O’Malley, one of the council’s most vocal advocates for environmental protection and climate resiliency, wants to talk recycling.
In an impassioned speech from council chambers Wednesday, O’Malley, from Jamaica Plain, called for a citywide conversation on the city’s recycling strategies and ways to reduce solid waste, pointing out that it now costs taxpayers millions of dollars to recycle, when the practice was a revenue generator just a few years ago.
“This is a huge issue. This is not only an environmental issue, this is not only a public health issue . . . it’s really a quality of life issue,” said O’Malley, who helped lead the city’s efforts two years ago to ban the sale of plastic bags.
O’Malley called for a council hearing involving city policymakers and advocates to explore ways the city can eliminate solid waste while also improving its recycling strategy. He said the city should not abandon its recycling efforts but must find a way to rein in the costs.
In a statement, Mayor Martin J. Walsh agreed, pointing to a Zero Waste Initiative that would encourage residents to discard of their waste in other ways, for instance by composting food and yard waste.
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“It’s a priority in Boston that we reduce waste and recycle more to improve the quality of life for our residents and protect our environment,” he said.
O’Malley’s plea comes as cities across the region are reconsidering their recycling strategies — in some cases just tossing their recyclables away as waste — as the economics of recycling have changed. Recycling plants, specifically those located in China, that used to accept glass, cans and paper from the United States no longer do.
A major reason is that materials sent for recycling are often contaminated with nonrecyclable products, such as plastic bags or food grease. And the burden of separating items has become too costly.
O’Malley said Boston’s recycling waste had a relatively low contamination rate. And still, he said, companies in China will no longer accept waste with more than one half of 1 percent contamination.
When O’Malley first took office, in 2011, he said, the city was collecting roughly $5 in revenue for every ton of recyclables, while spending roughly $85 to get rid of every ton of waste. By 2017, he said, the city was spending $200,000 to get rid of its recycling.
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This year, O’Malley told councilors, the city is projected to spend $6 million to recycle.
“We were getting paid for our recycling efforts — we’ve seen that change and we’ve seen recycling become less of a valuable commodity,” he said. “It’s now more expensive to pick up recycling than it is to pick up trash.”
But still, O’Malley said, the city has options. He said some communities, such as Wellesley, have developed their own recycling facilities. Others have done away with single-stream recycling programs, instead carefully separating each category. He said the city could do better to recycle textiles. A curbside composting program is planned, but has not been implemented.
“Mark my words, I will make sure we have recycling programs in Boston,” he said, in a speech that lasted more than seven minutes. “But we need to be more efficient, we need to be more effective, and we need to have these conversations.”
Milton J. Valencia can be reached at milton.valencia@globe.com. Follow him @miltonvalencia and on Instagram @miltonvalencia617.