File photo Joe Rings deposits some cardboard into a recycling bin in Alpena.

ALPENA — The Alpena County recycling center, Northeast Michigan Materials Management Authority (NMMMA), sold more tons of recycled material in 2025, but brought in less revenue than in 2024.

At their monthly meeting, NMMMA Executive Director Bailey Barr told board members that the reason why the recycling center’s revenue is down from 2024 is because the market for recyclables was poor.

“About 200 more tons of material sold this year with the revenue being less than last year,” Barr said. “So what that’s pretty much saying is, 2025, the markets dropped all across the board.”

Barr told board members that he hasn’t sold a truckload of plastic since May, though he hopes that once the center moves into the new facility employees will be able to sort plastic more effectively.

In December, NMMMA awarded the new Material Recovery Facility (MRF) project bid to Devere Industrial, LLC for $3.8 million, which added $500,000 to $700,000 to NMMMA’s original estimate. Bailey told The News that NMMMA wants the project to be operational by December 2026.

Barr explained at Thursday’s meeting that plastic is sold by “numbers,” which represent types of plastic. Currently, he said NMMMA sells plastic types three through seven, which makes the process of selling the material more difficult.

“There’s no factory that takes one through seven … they need it per number,” Barr said.

“Our current operation with the plastics, we’re only sorting two numbers right now,” he added. “When you sort by number … I could sell any number right now if we had a truck’s worth tomorrow. But the fact that how we’re oriented, because of our operation currently, is where our situation is tough because we’re not sorting … every single number.”

Due to the market challenges, Barr said that the facility has been baling plastic with “garbage” and holding it at the facility until the market improves.

“I’m not going to say that happens often. We probably have maybe six or seven bales of that right now … when it’s sitting there like that, it’s not something I want to do,” Barr said.

He explained that the practice of holding bales of recyclable materials is common for recycling facilities and that the plastic won’t degrade due to the weather.

Barr stated that NMMMA has an option to ship the plastic to Emmett County for $3,000 to the Emmett County MRF where that facility can more effectively break apart the bales and sort according to the plastic types.

“That’s a loss all the way around where when we get to our new place and we can reopen those and actually be able to recover and sell that product,” Barr added.

Board members discussed the opportunity costs of “recycled plastic” and “virgin plastics” noting that companies are more likely to seek out virgin plastics as they are less expensive.

Don Gilmet, NMMMA board member from Wilson Township, said that when virgin plastic is no longer the cheaper option for businesses, “they’ll take the problems.”

“They’ll work through it with their engineering and design,” he added.

Kayla Wikaryasz can be reached at 989-358-5688 or kwikaryasz@TheAlpenaNews.com.