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4 <br />or other sites throughout the County would be suitable locations if local zoning is ~ <br />adequate. f <br />Costs of materials recovery facilities vary greatly according to size, degree of automation, <br />design, amenities. Generally the trend in materials recovery facility design is towazds <br />larger facilities with flexibility in design to handle a wider variety of materials and adapt <br />quickly to changing market conditions. There are significant economies of scale <br />.achievable with Iazger facilities. <br />Estimated Cost of Materials Recovery Facility <br />A literature review of existing MRF operations and survey of MRF tipping fees <br />conducted by the Solid Waste Department staff last year came up with an average net <br />tipping fee of approximately 530 per ton to cover operating costs and debt service for a <br />faciIiry lazge enough to process the projected 100 tons per day expected to be recycled by <br />publicly operated programs in Orange County by 2006. .,The range of tipping fees in the <br />survey varied from 512 per ton to 390 per ton. The privately operated materials recovery <br />facility in Mecklenberg Couary charges 336 per ton to process commingled recyclables. <br />Factors affecting the wide variation depended upon the nature of ownership and <br />operation, degree of automation, expected amounts of residue from processing and <br />market conditions for recyclables. . <br />The planning level cost analysis for considering construction of a materials recovery <br />facility uses 330 per ton net processing cost Therefore the cost to process the 25,600 tons <br />of recyclables expected to be collected by programs operated by Orange Community <br />Recycling in the tazget year of 2006 is 5768,000 (See spread sheet on current v. proposed <br />recycling costs attached elswhere in this report). This processing cost is part of the <br />overall cost of operating the recycling and waste reduction system.. <br />If recyclables collected by others are also processed at the MRF, total cost could rise but <br />those new cosu would be covered by the tipping fee collected froth the haulers of the <br />other materials plus the revenues generated from sale of the collected materials. Cost per <br />ton could fall with the increased economies of scale. The projected processing cost of <br />S30 per ton is Iess than the projected cost of a tipping fee at a transfer station or'laadfill, <br />so it is possible that this differential could create an additional incentive to recycle. <br /> <br />