Money-Making Recycling Center.(in Tarrant County, Texas)

Public Management, January, 2001

Quietly, but loudly enough to create a wide-ranging demand for its services, for seven years the Tarrant County (Texas) Recycling Center has been making money to help offset the taxes paid by county property owners. It also has generated a ripple effect of benefits felt throughout the organization.

Each year, the facility contributes more than $40,000 to the county's general-fund revenues. Since its creation in August 1993, it has made $289,541 and recycled about five million pounds of paper products. But it's not just the money that the center makes that turns heads; it's the money that it saves. Coleman Standley, chief deputy of the county clerk's office, estimates that the center saves hundreds of thousands of dollars in storage costs alone. Additional...