Here’s How Much Trash and Recycling Collectors Earn in Every State

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Worker garbage collector truck loading waste and trash bin
Dmitry Kalinovsky / Shutterstock.com

Americans generate about 230 million tons of garbage a year. That’s about 4.6 pounds a day, on average, dumped by each of us.

Picking it up is dirty and dangerous. The fatal injury rate for refuse collectors — at 35 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers — is exceeded by that of only four other occupations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Is all this worth it for workers? Well, their earnings vary pretty widely across the United States.

We ranked the 50 states based on their average wages for garbage and recycling collectors, starting with the states with the lowest wages. Our ranking is based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest data, which is for 2018.

50. South Carolina

Garbage worker in truck, seen from above
degetzica / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $24,920

Refuse and recyclable material collectors’ salaries in South Carolina are a lot lower than state’s average wage of $43,210, shows Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

But the good news for these workers is that the cost of living in the Palmetto State can be relatively low, with home rental costs below the national median, according to SmartAsset.

49. Mississippi

Trash in front of a home
Gary Paul Lewis / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $26,310

Refuse and recyclable material collectors in Mississippi earn considerably less than the average Mississippian.

The job boom the nation is enjoying hasn’t yet lifted workers in Mississippi. The state’s Center for Public Policy says that three Mississippi metro areas — Hattiesburg, Jackson and Gulfport — mostly ranked among the bottom half of the 324 U.S. metros with populations of less than one million. In other words, they have relatively cold job markets.

48. South Dakota

Sioux Falls, South Dakota in winter.
Jacob Boomsma / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $26,750

Sioux Falls-based materials recovery facility Millennium Recycling epitomizes the ebbs and flows of an industry whose fortunes fluctuate with domestic and global demand. As China has clamped down on imported materials, Millennium skirted that tightened market by selling about 90% of its products to Midwestern companies.

The recycler also invested in a single-stream sorter, so that residents can throw everything together — paper, plastics, bottles, cans — in one container and not have to worry about sorting them.

47. West Virginia

Racoon in garbage
Jillian Cain Photography / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $28,860

The average average wage for all jobs in this coal mining state is $42,370, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

46. Arkansas

FJAH / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $29,090

Green Texarkana, a recycling pilot program begun in 2010, was discontinued this year because of costs associated with the monthly recycling drive. The city of Texarkana’s recycling center remains open, however.

45. North Carolina

Sterling Images / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $29,370

Atmosp’hair Salon in Durham, North Carolina, uses its hair clippings to help with oil spills and is one of the country’s certified Green Circle Salons, which divert spa waste from landfills. Hair clippings are made into pillows that are used to soak up oil spills, absorbing oil and other contaminants.

Atmosp’hair Salon customers pay $1.25 extra to cover the cost of recycling, says WRAL-TV.

44. Tennessee

Dump truck waste landfill
MOHAMED ABDULRAHEEM / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $30,060

The Volunteer State’s General Assembly recently passed Senate Bill 0923 to pave the way for taking plastic scrap and turning it into raw material through advanced recycling techniques.

The state estimates that converting its plastic waste into fuel could power 219,000 vehicles annually.

43. Kentucky

hand plastic reuse recycling environmental recycle
one photo / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $30,200

The University of Kentucky Recycling’s user-friendly website helps UK students, faculty and staff and the surrounding Lexington community find facilities that emphasize the three R’s: reduce, reuse and recycle waste materials.

The site, created by a student, lists local thrift, repair and resell stores and donation and recycling centers.

42. Maine

Karla Ferro / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $30,800

In late April, Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed legislation that will ban disposable foam food containers in the state, effective on Jan. 1, 2021.

The Natural Resources Council of Maine estimates that 256 million disposable foam plates, cups, bowls, trays and platters are used each year in Maine.

41. Maryland

Nicole S Glass / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $30,890

Like Maine, Maryland recently banned the use of polystyrene foam food containers.

These containers make up about 35% of the garbage collected by clean-up events throughout the state, according to the nonprofit Trash Free Maryland.

40. Alabama

Garbage truck dumping its contents
Stastny_Pavel / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $31,080

The city of Florence — located in Lauderdale County, where participation in recycling increases by 25% every year — recently advanced its recycling efforts with an automatic sorter.

The equipment removes unrecyclable items from the more than 6.4 million pounds of refuse that go through the Florence facility each year.

39. Georgia

Plastic bottles,compressed into bales recycling
RecycleMan / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $32,390

Georgia College & State University recently won a grant from PepsiCo Recycling to help in its effort to become fully sustainable. The grant will help the school bale recycling materials on the campus rather than shipping them to a facility off-campus.

Transferring the baling process to campus should help achieve environmental and financial benefits for the college, Georgia College student Nick Palmer told WGMT-TV.

38. Kansas

recycling garbage curb pick up
Meg Wallace Photography / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $32,420

Local recycling programs in Kansas and elsewhere are feeling the loss of a market for their recyclable waste.

As China rejects more American recyclables due to the percentage of nonrecyclable contaminants, Kansas cities and towns are absorbing higher costs for their curbside recycling programs.

Winfield, Kansas, for example, has seen recycling costs grow to over $150,000 a year, with just one day’s warning, says KAKE.com, an ABC affiliate in Wichita.

37. New Mexico

recycling tires
Josep Curto / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $32,790

In Taos, New Mexico, others’ trash could be the building materials for your home.

Taos-based Earthship Biotecture designs and builds “Earthships,” homes that are constructed partly with old tires, cans and bottles.

36. Missouri

mountain crushed waste broken glass recycled
Somnuek saelim / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $33,020

Glass recycling companies like GlassBandit and Ripple Glass are helping push Kansas City’s glass recycling rate from 3% to nearly 25%.

Ripple Glass takes mountains of glass, processes it and ships it out for eventual use in making fiberglass insulation and beer bottles.

34. Nebraska (tie)

Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge in Omaha, Nebraska
Melissa A. Woolf / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $33,030

Omaha’s Hefty EnergyBag program, a curbside recycling effort begun three years ago with a few thousand households, is growing across the metro area. The program removes hard-to-recycle plastics from the waste stream and recycles these materials — stuff that otherwise can bog down recycling facilities.

Larger items like 32-ounce soda bottles and gallon milk jugs are easily recycled. But plastic straws, bags and candy wrappers? The Hefty program gives Omaha area residents a way to separate those items and see that they are recycled, too.

Says KETC Newswatch 7 in Omaha:

“The program is designed to keep the smaller plastics separated from the larger ones, allowing all the materials to be turned into useful products.”

34. North Dakota (tie)

Downtown Fargo.
David Harmantas / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $33,030

Rotting garbage stinks. But it’s also a source of energy.

Fargo, North Dakota, is expanding its methane gas recovery from its landfill. It plans to install new equipment for treating methane and other gases that will create a better quality gas product. Eventually, the gas could be used to power the city’s fleet, says the city’s solid waste manager.

33. New Hampshire

Open lid foot trash can pedal
Jenson / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $33,110

China’s rejection of much of the contaminated recycling material coming from the U.S. has made recycling less profitable, NH Business Review explains:

“By now, many have heard about the recycling glut. Cardboard is selling at half the price it used to. Mixed paper and glass once fetched cash. Now you have to pay to get rid of them.”

Despite the higher costs and reduced profitability, New Hampshire businesses like Hypertherm, Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Northern New England and Hannaford’s are continuing their drive toward 100% sustainability, the publication says.

32. Louisiana

Full garbage cans in front of a brightly lit shopfront
Kelly vanDellen / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $33,300

Louisiana ranked dead last in WalletHub’s 2019 Greenest States ranking. The state came in 50th for “eco-friendly behaviors” like recycling electronic waste and offering multifamily recycling.

But Robert Pressler, a Farm Stores franchisee, is doing what he can, with a drive-thru convenience store made from repurposed shipping containers.

31. Iowa

Corepics VOF / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $33,460

The Hawkeye State recently took a big step, by passing Senate File 534, toward diverting waste from reaching landfills. The measure supports recycling plastics into usable materials through a process called pyrolysis.

30. Indiana

children Kids cheering hardhats environment
Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $33,840

The Hoosier State is offering matching grants, some as much as $250,000, to businesses, governments and nonprofits for projects focusing on methods to reduce, reuse and recycle waste.

29. Vermont

Recycling in Vermont
Ann Moore / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $34,020

State lawmakers are pushing forward a bill to ban single-use plastic bags and polystyrene food and drink containers by July 2020.

28. Oklahoma

Oklahoma Route 66
Peek Creative Collective / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $34,150

“We have this flood of plastics that are going straight into our oceans. It’s the equivalent of about a garbage truck worth of plastics every minute,” Oklahoma Aquarium’s Ann Money tells Fox23 News, describing the effect of plastics trash on the Arkansas River.

The aquarium suggests some easy ways to help, including:

  • BYOB (bring your own shopping bag)
  • Keep clothes out of dumpsters
  • Stop using plastic utensils.

27. Texas

garbage removal worker emptying dustbin garbage truck
Kzenon / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $34,500

In 2017, Texas had the most fatalities — 13 — of any state from trash and recycling collection.

“The fatalities included contract workers, long-haul truckers transporting waste and pedestrians who are killed by collection vehicles,” said The Houston Chronicle.

The number of those deaths fell to six in 2018.

26. Virginia

Rob Crandall / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $35,510

Arlington County residents now must put glass refuse in the waste bins, not recycling, the county decided in April.

Arlington, like many other municipalities in the U.S., has been hit by the high cost of recycling the material collected from residents.

25. Idaho

Boise, Idaho
Charles Knowles / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $35,670

Spend the night inside a spud?

Sure, at the Big Idaho Potato Hotel, which is being reused and recycled from a former incarnation to help celebrate the Idaho Potato Commission’s 75th anniversary.

Says House Beautiful:

“The steel spud is 28 feet long and 12 feet wide, and it’s firmly planted in South Boise, Idaho (overlooking the Owyhee Mountains!).”

24. Florida

Greenseas / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $36,460

South Florida communities, too, are wrestling with municipal recycling difficulties because of China’s refusal to take U.S. plastic and paper recyclables as well as residents’ failure to follow proper recycling methods.

In Key West, though, the Papio Kinetic Sculpture Parade showcased unique uses for recycled materials: Most parade entries are made from recycled and repurposed materials.

23. Rhode Island

Patsy Michaud / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $36,620

With lean times hitting the recycling industry, Rhode Island is turning toward educating residents and businesses about how to recycle correctly with its Let’s Recycle RIght campaign.

Rhode Island is the first state to adopt standardized bin labels from Recycle Across America to help folks know what they may and may not throw into recycling bins, reports Recycling Today magazine.

22. New Jersey

Jersey City garbage scow
Erin Cadigan / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $36,730

Trenton company TerraCycle is taking an innovative approach to waste and recycling with its Loop service, launching in Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

CBS News says Loop will operate on a subscription basis, delivering products in reusable packaging.

Says CBS:

“Instead of throwing away packaging after it’s been used once, Loop delivers over 300 consumer goods in reusable packaging. Shoppers can purchase Tide detergent, Dove deodorant, Coca-Cola soda or Häagen-Dazs ice cream that will be delivered to their doorsteps in tote bags. It’s a new spin on the milkman deliveries of yore, except with just about any consumer good.”

21. Wyoming

robertwcoy / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $37,150

The annual Jackson EcoFair offers varied examples of how to lead an environmentally friendly and sustainable lifestyle.

Events like EcoFair may help Wyoming move up from its No. 47 spot on WalletHub’s ranking of the greenest states.

20. Hawaii

Alex Krassel / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $37,290

In the Aloha state, Hawaii’s U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono recently met with young students to talk about keeping trash out of the ocean.

In Hawaii and elsewhere along the U.S. coasts, volunteers with the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation help clean up beaches as part of a multifaceted approach to keeping the planet green.

19. Pennsylvania

Colin A Pierce / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $37,640

One community in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania is trying out a mobile app called Recycle Coach, which shows residents their local schedule for waste pickup and recycling services.

The app also aims to educate residents about what they can recycle and what they should dispose of in other ways.

18. Ohio

The Adaptive / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $37,970

A partnership between the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio and the Recycling Partnership is offering wheeled carts at a big discount, helping communities in their recycling efforts.

The bins’ four-sided dimensions increase capacity and make mechanized collection easier.

17. Nevada

Las Vegas
Kobby Dagan / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $38,420

In Las Vegas, known worldwide for its feast for the senses, some hotels and casinos are working to reduce food waste. The effort is focused on rescuing food from banquets and minibars and encouraging less waste, especially in buffets.

Some companies, like Las Vegas Sands Corp., donate banquet food to groups, including Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada.

16. Montana

Jody / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $38,840

Big Sky Country is a sprawling state, but a new nonprofit, Recycling Works, is on a mission to recycle as much glass as possible.

Yellowstone National Park, which straddles Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, is trying to do its part for the environment. It recently diverted nearly half of park garbage away from landfills by recycling and composting.

15. Utah

PureRadiancePhoto / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $38,970

Salt Lake City-based Coalatree has an innovative way to transform garbage into clothing and other gear. Most of its apparel is made from repurposed or recycled materials. The company says:

“Instead of creating new threads, our partners find discarded yarns and even plastics, then melt them down and spin them into new fibers.”

14. Arizona

Roger Siljander / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $39,960

To cut costs as recycling has become more expensive for municipalities, the city of Tucson, Arizona, recently reduced recycling collections to every other week.

13. Minnesota

SGr / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $40,240

Counties in the northwestern part of the state are using technology, not people, to sort recyclables from the unrecyclable. The equipment sends recycling collections on a conveyor belt.

Reports MPR News:

“As each item breaks a light beam, an optical scanner decides what kind of plastic it is, triggers a burst of air and blows the item onto another conveyor belt that carriers different kinds of plastic to individual storage bins.”

The non-recyclable trash is turned into ash through incineration.

12. Colorado

Garbage truck
photo-denver / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $40,780

Denver is trying to help businesses reduce waste with its Certifiably Green Denver initiative. The program provides experts who work with local companies.

According to the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment, nearly 2,000 Denver businesses are using the program.

11. Delaware

plastic bags tree garbage dump
Andriy Solovyov / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $40,840

Delaware Gov. John Carney recently helped launch the state’s “Keep DE Litter Free” campaign. The move followed a 2018 state survey that determined there are 6,000 pieces of garbage discarded for every mile of roadway in Delaware.

10. Wisconsin

Linda Armstrong / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $41,330

Sheboygan, Wisconsin, is following the technological lead of several other areas in the country by using automation, and not workers, to empty bins into its collection trucks.

The program, to begin in early summer of 2020, should makes it easier for the municipality to collect an estimated 40 tons of garbage daily while reducing worker injuries.

9. Michigan

Gunter Nezhoda / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $41,880

The city of Westland has had to literally scrap its recycling program over increased costs. In February the city’s recycling bill rose in 30 days from $18 a ton to $80 a ton.

Now, Westland sends its paper, plastics and cans to the landfill while officials look for a new recycling solution.

Other Michigan municipalities may face similar decisions as the market for recycled material nosedives.

8. Massachusetts

BravoKiloVideo / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $44,020

Cities that pay to have their curbside recycling hauled away are facing drastically increased costs.

Some, like Lowell, Massachusetts, now are giving warnings and even $25 fines to residents who don’t recycle properly. That’s so the municipalities can avoid being fined for delivering nonrecyclable items to recycling centers.

7. Connecticut

Recycle
jorik / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $44,290

With China largely rejecting plastic and paper recyclables from the United States, some cities in Connecticut have gone from earning $20 a ton for processing recycling to paying $70 per ton, writes The Connecticut Mirror, a publication aimed at increasing civic engagement.

6. Oregon

Overcrowded overflowing paper trash office
Ralf Geithe / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $44,650

Police in Oregon may not go through your garbage without a search warrant, the state’s supreme court has ruled.

For the dirty details of this case, read the court’s opinion.

5. Alaska

EQRoy / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $48,000

A few Alaska towns are helping fishermen keep their old nets and lines out of landfills, instead transforming them into skateboards and swimsuits. It’s a collaboration that involves the towns and the organization Net Your Problem.

4. Washington

praditkhorn somboonsa / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $51,780

Washington House Bill 1543, signed by Gov. Jay Inslee in early May, is an attempt to make the Evergreen State more self-reliant and sustainable, now that China is taking much less recycling.

The law encourages the researching and developing of markets for recyclables in Washington.

3. California

Recycling truck picking up bin
Paul Vasarhelyi / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $53,730

It’s the end of an era in the Southern California city of El Segundo. In May, El Segundo became Los Angeles County’s last municipality to provide automated waste and recycling pickup.

Manual trash collection had been free to residents. The new cost: $15 per month for single-family homes and duplexes.

2. New York

Garbage truck in New York.
Nielskliim / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $56,710

In April, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a state bill to ban single-use plastic bags.

New Yorkers use an estimated 23 billion plastic bags annually, and about half of them end up in landfills, around the city or in waterways, says Forbes.

1. Illinois

waste garbage styrofoam plastic black bag dirty, Bin, Trash, Recycle
DeawSS / Shutterstock.com

Average annual wage for trash and recycling collectors: $57,680

What to do about all that Styrofoam, generically called expanded polystyrene (EPS)?

The cost of recycling it can be prohibitive. But Brien Ohnemus, founder of Lima, Illinois-based Brohn Tech, believes his mobile Styro-Constrictor recycling system can make EPS recycling cost-effective.

He reasons, according to Earth911, that by condensing EPS, materials recyclers won’t have to use costly building space to store and process the used product.

Is your community pulling back its recycling program because of increased costs? Tell us what’s going on in a comment below or at our Facebook page.

Donna Freedman contributed to this article.

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