Disposable income: Metrolina Recycling Center lets the state's largest county take in more from its expanding waste line.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: PICTURE THIS

What it comes in comes here--ordinary items made of stuff with extraordinary names, such as polyethylene terephthalate, used for soft-drink bottles, and polypropylene, molded into tubs that hold margarine and yogurt. It's just trash until it's sorted, bundled, processed and sent on its way from Metrolina Recycling Center, in an industrial section of Charlotte. Last fiscal year, some 60,000 tons were reclaimed, clearing Mecklenburg County about $1.5 million when it was sold. Through the first nine months of this fiscal year, that figure has jumped to $2.5 million.

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"What' s selling now? Everything," says Bruce Gledhill, Mecklenburg County's director of solid-waste management. "The market is really strong." Mixed paper fetches $130 a ton. Soft-drink containers are worth $760 a ton. Aluminum tops the menu, now going for more than $1,900 a ton. About 90% of what comes in goes out again for new uses. What's left is what Gledhill calls residuals, can or bottle labels and other nonrecyclables.

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Born in conflict--scrap drives were common in both world wars--and boosted by the 1970s energy shortages, modern recycling happens by way of public and private enterprise. The state's largest county, with a population the local chamber estimates at nearly 940,000, pays private FCR Inc. a fee--plus 25% of net sales--to run the recycling center. Started in Charlotte 28 years ago, the company operates about 20 sites nationwide.

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The county's seven municipalities--Charlotte, with more than 700,000 residents, by far the biggest--bear the cost of collecting recyclables but are not charged for processing...