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Frederick County commissioners gambled in November when they signed a contract to pay $12 per ton to haul recyclables to a processing plant in Howard County.

But like many homeowners who took a chance on a risky mortgage, the commissioners' gamble has not paid off, thanks to a souring financial market.

Commissioners signed the contract to pay Waste Management Recycle America $12 per ton to transport recyclable materials from the Reich's Ford Road landfill in Frederick to Recycle America's processing plant in Elkridge, Howard County.

The agreement took effect Dec. 1 and expires on April 24, 2010.

Michael G. Marschner, Frederick County's director of Utilities and Solid Waste Management, told commissioners before they agreed to the contract that when the financial market improves, they should make enough money from selling recycling materials to offset the cost of hauling it to Elkridge.

He said that before the economy plunged in September, county could have earned between $40 and $50 per ton of recyclable material.

But that changed when the markets crashed.

"The resale market has tanked so badly," Marschner said in an interview Monday. "A lot of the total value of the materials is negative. Now we're making zero. We're assuming the recession will end and the markets will pick back up, but I don't know when."

Still, it costs less for the county to haul recyclables to Elkridge than it would to treat it as trash. The landfill is full, so the county pays $80 per ton to haul it to landfills in Virginia.

Frederick County recycles 36 percent of its waste and has a goal of 60 percent by 2024. To increase recycling, the county is replacing most of the 18-gallon blue containers residents have been using with 65-gallon carts on wheels to allow for "single-stream recycling."

The program, which costs $3 million a year, allows residents to put all their recyclables in the larger bin, thus eliminating sorting. The new system is designed to make recycling easier and encourage higher participation.

But as the worldwide economy slips further into a recession, revenue from the sale of recyclables on the open market is crumbling.

Carroll County officials said they are not impacted by the downward trend because of existing contracts. They are still keeping a close eye on the situation.

"I don't think anyone expected it would fall this fast," said Maria Myers, Carroll County's recycling manager. "But it has always come back before. We just have to ride it out."

In Frederick County, the sale of recyclables on the open market has never made enough money to offset the costs.

In early 2005, Frederick County spent $1.5 million to provide curbside pickup to 48,000 residents. But the county only collected between $100,000 and $200,000 from the sale of the recycled materials on the open market.

"There has never been enough money to cover the cost of the program, because we do the collection [of the recyclables]," Marschner said.

County officials have not given up. In April 2005, they tried a different approach to offset costs. They contracted with Waste Management to provide free transportation for the pickup and disposal of recycle materials. Since there was no cost for transportation, the county agreed not to take profits from the sale of the reusable materials on the open market, Marschner said.

As a part of the new single-stream recycling program, the county needed to secure a new agreement through the Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority, an independent state agency that helps counties handle their trash. Under the agreement, the county will take the profits in hopes of offsetting the cost of transportation.

Marschner, a member of the authority, said he hopes that will come soon. "The current market situation is probably temporary and these material values should increase," he said.

E-mail Sherry Greenfield at sgreenfield@gazette.net.