LUMBERTON — Recycling has never been easier for Robeson County residents.

For the past decade, the county has lagged behind in the race to “go green.” Until three years ago, cost concerns coupled with apathy left few recycling options in the county, and it showed: The North Carolina Department of Environmental and Natural Resources ranked Robeson County third worst in the state for recycling plastic bottles in 2008. Each Robeson County resident recycled an average of .11 pounds of plastic bottles, whereas in Orange County residents averaged 30 pounds of recycled plastic bottles per person.

But now the county is trying to catch up. A month after new provisions to state law banned additional non-biodegradable materials from landfills, Pembroke, Lumberton and St. Pauls have implemented recycling programs, and the county landfill is looking to expand its recycling initiatives.

“With new regulations coming in, citizens are being more environmentally concerned and aware,” said Steve Edge, director at the Robeson County landfill. “It’s something that all of us need to think about. There’s going to be a time when these raw products are not going to be available to us, and that’s going to be dumped on a future generation if we don’t take action now.”

Climate change concerns worldwide have prompted governments to promote “green” lifestyles. Using alternative energy is a grand federal initiative, but keeping non-biodegradable materials out of landfills has become priority for most states.

When recycling companies process non-biodegradables, they disinfect materials and then sell them to manufacturers to re-use. Ultimately it means fewer trees cut down to make paper; less resin manufactured for plastics; less mining to find metal.

Pembroke is a trailblazer in local recycling. Its curbside recycling program has been in place for a decade, but participation was poor up until October, said Cecily Porter Maynor, president of Pembroke Waste Collections.

On Oct. 1, state regulations took effect banning from landfills plastic bottles, whole scrap tires, motor vehicle oil filters and wooden pallets. Used oil, yard trash, household appliances, antifreeze, aluminum cans, lead-acid batteries, and some beverage containers were already banned.

Since then, the number of residents participating has increased at least 25 percent, Maynor said.

A call to Town Hall gets residents or businesses a 14-gallon container delivered to their homes to recycle plastic, aluminum, cardboard, paper and glass.

The town picks up recycling on Wednesdays, and if businesses participate — none currently do — they can have it picked up as needed.

Maynor said The University of North Carolina at Pembroke has been active in the program, but despite its ease — all recyclables can go in the container, and a company in Wagram sorts them — participation remains low.

For the past year, St. Pauls has had trailers at Town Hall to recycle aluminum and plastic containers, and last week it added a new service aimed at elderly and disabled people.

Elderly and disabled people can call Town Hall and request recycling pick-up; someone will pick up their recycling once per month, said Stuart Turille, town administrator.

“We know people are thinking a lot about the law, and we’re trying to have a service for our citizens. ... We have lots of services for our elderly and disabled,” Turille said. “We’ll keep the drop off at Town Hall until we get a better idea of what the county plans to do with plastics at the landfill. ... Then we’ll consider going curbside for our citizens.”

City Manager Wayne Horne said Lumberton began assessing recycling options in mid-August.

The city has opened one unmanned recycling site at the Robeson County Church and Community Center on West Fifth Street for paper, plastics, aluminum and cans, and plans on establishing two more. The Lumberton Rescue Squad on Walnut Street will have one by the end of the month, and a container at the Lumberton Resource Center on Second Street will be available after site work, Horne said.

Signs at the sites will tell people what is allowed in the containers. Horne said that Lumberton Rescue Squad at one time had a recycling site, but closed because trash other that recyclables was constantly thrown in the container.

If recyclables are mixed with garbage, they are contaminated and cannot be processed, which is why the landfill does not recycle materials from its trash collections sites, Edge said. “Dirty” material recovery facilities can recycle contaminated materials, but there are none in North Carolina.

Waste Management, a private-sector company that provides garbage service for Lumberton and other county municipalities, will take the recyclables to a plant in Fayetteville for processing.

When the City Council discussed the landfill law in October, curbside recycling, which would cost $3.25 per household, was nixed — at least temporarily.

“It’s more expensive, but more effective at removing large quantities of plastics from individual households,” Horne said.

The law places the burden on the landfill to keep out forbidden materials. The consequence for failing to remove the materials: A $15,000 fine.

As more provisions gradually come into effect — the next round bans electronic materials in January 2011 — the county landfill is trying to add recycling options.

“This is another un-funded mandate with no funding to implement the project,” Edge said. “We can’t do it next month, we can’t do it next year. It all goes back to the economy. It’s very expensive.

“But while it may not be the most economically-sound thing to do, it’s the most environmentally sound.”

The county does provide 10 recycling sites in the county.

Currently, the nearest place for the landfill to recycle is Sonoco Recycling in Fayetteville, and the cost of driving there outweighs the benefit: The truck costs $5.50 per mile to operate; 38,000 plastic soda bottles make a ton, Sonoco pays $15 per ton, Edge said.

“Right now we collect from individual sites and then go to Fayetteville,” he said. “That’s where economics kick in.”

He said if North Carolina adopted the nickle-per-bottle tax that many other states tack onto bottle sales, that money could go back to the county to pay for an on-site recycling facility, which would reduce the cost of recycling: The landfill would bale it, fill a tractor trailer, and make the trip to Fayetteville, Edge said.

The county is seeking grants that would pay for constructing a small recycling system at the landfill.

When the landfill reaches capacity — in about 35 years — the county will have to close the facility and find a new one.

“Any recycling will reduce the amount of tonnage received at the landfill, which will obviously extend the lifespan of the facility,” Edge said.

He said that Robeson County has the potential to make significant progress in recycling: Recycling programs at the 43 schools in the Robeson County system, Robeson Community College and UNCP would have a marked impact on landfill waste.

Before recycling, the county’s development efforts focused on making trash collection more efficient. It is gradually replacing 36 front-loading garbage collection sites with compactors, where garbage is pressed into cubes, reducing the amount of equipment and labor for maintenance.

“Community response was overwhelming,” Edge said. “It improved overall aesthetics of the facility. With front-loader sites you see garbage, and it uses three pieces of equipment and inmate cleanup crews daily.”

At the 10 — soon 11 — compactor sites, there’s one piece of equipment and weekly pick-up.

Paper and plastic recycling is free to county residents, but metal recycling can be a money-maker.

“People make a real good living selling scrap,” said Johnny Speights at Lumberton Recycling, which has been on Cox Road for nearly 60 years.

OmniSource, an Indiana metals recycling company, recently bought the company and re-named it OmniSource Southeast, but it remains Lumberton Recycling in the local lexicon.

The company buys scrap metal based on current metal prices, and then its parent company processes and resells it to manufacturers, who remelt and reshape it into new items. Business fluctuates with metal prices: A year and a half ago, the yard was full because the prices were higher, Speights said.

“We take automobiles, aluminum, tin, white goods, cans, coppers, brass, stainless steel,” Speights said. “Copper pays the highest, $2.13 per pound. Aluminum cans are the lowest, 40 cents per pound right now.”

The scrap metal business is periodically on the police radar: When metal prices increase, so does theft, especially of copper wire from homes, businesses, churches and schools.

Metal recycling is a $20 billion industry in the United States. According to its Web site, OmniSource sold more than 917 million tons of metal last year.

Speights said Lumberton Recycling buys an average 500,000 tons per month.

“We’re here for the community to recycle stuff and get it off the streets,” Speights said. “They can get money for what they recycle instead of just throwing it away.”

Days after the landfill law provisions took effect, mountains of metal spotted Lumberton Recycling’s lot, punctuated by stacks of plastic bottles and piles of plastic bags that, with no local plastic recycling options, languish at the yard.

“We sure hope they do something (about plastic recycling),” Speights said. “We have trash bags and trash bags. We can’t send them to the landfill, so we’re waiting for someone to come up with something.”

The county is forming a committee that will work on figuring the best ways to approach integrating a recycling system into waste management, Edge said.

Meanwhile, the landfill is inspecting 20 percent of incoming loads for banned materials, and hoping the 15 municipalities it serves will chip in.

“We’d hope they’d form recycling for the city,” Edge said. “Not just the city of Lumberton, but all municipalities in the area, and try to implement something.

“Recycling is not always economically feasible for a small municipality to do, but it’s the environmentally correct thing to do.”

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— Recycling containers for cans, paper, aluminum and plastics are in place at the Robeson County Church and Community Center on Fifth Street.

— To get a container for curbside recycling in Pembroke, call Town Hall at (910) 521-9758, and a container will be delivered your business or residence.

— Elderly and disabled people in St. Pauls can call Town Hall at (910) 865-5164 and request someone pick up their plastic containers, like soda bottles and milk cartons, at their homes.