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For Peter Bielecki Sr., it’s certainly nice that fuel prices have dropped in the past few months. Transportation is cheaper for the scrap he collects and sells at Bielecki Scrap and Recycling in Wilkes-Barre.

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Peter Bielecki Sr. is discouraged with business now that the recession has started to affect the scrap industry.

AIMEE DILGER/The Times Leader

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But Bielecki doesn’t have much material to transport anymore.

The truck that used to run daily when fuel was far more expensive now sits in the yard most of the week.

“I’m probably using more electricity to keep it warm so it’ll start,” he said.

The national economic downturn has hit the recycling industry. Companies can’t sell the scrap metals and paper for as much, so they can’t offer as much to the people who bring it in. The people, in turn, are less likely to bring in anything.

“They bring it in, and we pay them, and they look at it, and they say, ‘This is all I got?’” Bielecki said.

To keep up business, he thanks every customer he can. “I don’t care if they brought me 1 pound of cans or 100 pounds of cans. … If they’re not bringing it in, I don’t have nothing to ship out,” he said. “I lay awake at night thinking of this.”

The dead market has forced him to stop accepting newspaper, phone books and magazines because it actually costs him $5 per ton to have someone accept it.

“It was costing us more to bale it than we would have gotten for it,” he said. “I had one company that took my remaining paper. I had to truck it to them, and I gave it to them.”

It’s also caused Frackville to suspend its recycling program for lack of funding, said state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Mark Carmon. “It’s mostly rural drop-off facilities that have scaled back or stopped, but nothing major,” he said.

Planning ahead helped Exeter keep its program afloat. The borough, which collects for Courtdale, Avoca, Exeter Township and Jackson Township as well, inked a three-year deal in which the recycler takes $35 per ton of material collected and leaves the rest for Exeter. But when prices fall below that – as they have – the borough doesn’t have to make up the difference.

“It’s kind of a win-win for everybody,” said Karen Szwast, the borough’s grant writer who’s also involved with environmental efforts in the area. Like Bielecki, she’s concerned the meager returns will turn people off to recycling and have them asking why it costs money to sell the material.

“It still takes money to get to that end product that you sell,” she said. “I hate to see any towns stop recycling because the cost is too steep.”

The bad market has had an upside, though, for the Wilkes-Barre Recycling Center, according to manager Dave Solomon. The company was set to stop accepting paper as Bielecki did, “but with the way the market dropped off, we got busier. The competition quieted down a little bit. People aren’t fighting over the paper any more,” he said.

Rory Swee ney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.