KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — After viewers sent questions about how much of Knoxville's recycling actually gets recycled, we took those questions to the city leaders in charge of the program.
The City of Knoxville has an agreement with a local company called WestRock. The agreement charges WestRock with collecting, sorting and distributing the recycling collected from the curbside recycling program and most of the recycling collected at the drop-off locations around Knoxville.
The agreement between the city and WestRock, signed in November 2019, called for an audit of the program to be completed within 60 days. The audit would estimate how much of the city's recycling is contaminated with non-recyclables.
When 10News interviewed the city's recycling coordinator Patience Melnik in November 2021, she said the audit hadn't been completed, but it was imminent.
"We were about to do it when COVID hit," Melnik said.
Sixty days from the date the agreement was executed put the deadline for an audit on January 19, 2020 — 46 days before Tennessee reported their first case of COVID-19.
So we asked again: why didn't the city do an audit of the recycling program by the January deadline?
In an email, WestRock Director of Corporate Communications Courtney James said the delay was "due to significant downtime events and equipment maintenance."
James said WestRock and the city scheduled the audit for February 11, 2022 — more than 2 years after the date specified in the agreement. In Nashville, the city's Assistant Director of Public Works Sharon Smith said they've done recycling audits for the past 20 years.
"It gives you an idea of what people are putting in the bin, and also what people are putting in that they shouldn't," Smith said.
Smith said it's helpful for the city to see how people are contaminating the city's recycling, to help educate them.
"It really tries to make sure that as much of the population has access to good information," Smith said.
Smith said Nashville did not stop auditing recycling because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Knoxville, city leaders don't know how much recycling is contaminated. But, the agreement between the city and WestRock gives the sorting company the right to reject any load that has more than 15% contamination.
WestRock said to date, they have not rejected any loads.