The St. Louis Metro Area Recycling Economic Information Study (SLMAREIS) was commissioned and funded by the St. Louis - Jefferson Solid Waste Management District. This study was conducted by Dr. Joseph Martinich, Professor in the College of Business Administration at the University of Missouri - St. Louis, and supported by the Business Research and Information Development Group (BRIDG)/Entrepreneurial University of University of Missouri Extension. It was undertaken to determine the size of recycling, remanufacturing, and reuse (RRR) in each of the 26 industry categories in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area (SLMA). The direct economic values that were measured included number of establishments, employment, annual payroll and annual receipts.

The study found that in the SLMA there are 1458 establishments performing recycling, remanufacturing, or reuse (RRR) activities as an integral part of their operations. These establishments have an employment of 15,776 (including over 900 sole proprietors), annual payroll of $639,910,000, and annual receipts of $4,911,458,000 that are directly related to, or dependent on, recycling, remanufacturing, or reuse of materials and products. Including the indirect and induced economic effects, the total economic values of the RRR industries are 39,963 jobs, $1,517,468,000 in annual payroll, and annual receipts of $8,146,101,000.

The recycling, remanufacturing and reuse industries are an important part of the SLMA economy. Their direct contributions are larger than those of the utilities industry (electricity, gas, water and sewage combined), the food, beverage, and tobacco manufacturing industries combined, computer and electronic products manufacturing, primary metals manufacturing, and the printing industry, and they are about the same size as chemical manufacturing and machinery manufacturing.

The Recycling Manufacturing Sector makes up over 65% of the employment and over 75% of the payroll in the RRR industries found in the SLMA. The industries in this sector are made up of high value-adding businesses (converting raw materials into valuable intermediate or finished products), which require highly skilled and highly paid labor (an average annual pay per worker of almost $50,000). The annual receipts for this sector, however, are less than 46% of the total recycling effort because of the very large receipts for the Recycling Processing Sector (wholesaling/brokering), which total almost 50%. The Recycling Processing Sector and the Remanufacturing and Reuse Sectors are quite heterogenous, making it difficult to aggregate their values. Within the Recycling Processing Sector there are many low-skill, low-paying jobs involved with sorting and densifying recyclables but there are also some highly skilled material wholesalers/brokers. This sector is a major activity of recycling in the SLMA with some very large companies and over 60 sole proprietors. It has large annual receipts, relative to employment, which tends to distort the industry totals for the SLMA. The Remanufacturing and Reuse Sector is similarly heterogeneous. Approximately 90% of these establishments are retailers of used merchandise, such as clothes, books, and furniture, and the pay per worker is at or near the minimum wage. This sector is also dominated by sole proprietors. On the other hand, there is some moderately skilled remanufacturing of electronics products and re-treading of tires, which pay substantially more (an average of $24,000-30,000 per year). The Recycling Collection Sector is made up of primarily low-skilled waste collectors (however, their average annual pay is over $35,000, due to both the high physical demands of the job and unionization of many of the workers). Although the Recycling Collection Sector is economically small and appears insignificant, it plays a major role in the vitality of the processing and manufacturing sectors.

The rates of collection and processing of recyclables in the SLMA are above the national average. This high rate of collection and processing makes the SLMA a major center of wholesale trading and brokering of recyclable materials, employing over 1650 people with an annual payroll of almost $75 million, and results in the SLMA being a leading exporter of recyclable materials. The SLMA is also above the national average in recycling-based manufacturing (using recycled materials directly in manufacturing), and in the remanufacturing and reuse of products.

Of the 15,776 people employed in recycling, remanufacturing, or reuse (RRR) activities, nearly 80% of them work in seven RRR industries:

1. Steel mills (3040 workers)
2. Nonferrous product producers (1869 workers)
3. Recyclable material wholesalers (1652 workers)
4. Plastics converters (1630 workers)
5. Retail used merchandise (1611 workers)
6. Iron and steel foundries (1490 workers)
7. Nonferrous foundries (1300 workers)
   

The recycling, remanufacturing, and reuse industries play an important economic role in the SLMA economy, providing over 1% of the area's jobs through direct employment and supporting another 2% through indirect and induced employment. These industries provide a broad mix of employment opportunities, from very low skill jobs to very high skill, high paying ones. Although some companies are quite large, requiring substantial capital resources, an overwhelming majority of the enterprises (estimated to be over 90%) are of small to moderate size with relatively low barriers to entry. In fact, the RRR industries provide many opportunities for entrepreneurs to start sole proprietor businesses, especially in the collection, and remanufacturing and reuse sectors.

For more information on this study, please contact Mr. Lee Fox, Recycling Market Development Specialist for the University of University of Missouri Extension, Ph. 314-615-7610 or e-mail foxlb@missouri.edu.

Link to full study