Most cost variables in a recycling facility are fixed. Contracts, inbound volume, shift schedules. Commodity prices aren’t. They move fast and without warning, and when they drop, the labor cost per ton doesn’t move with them. That mismatch is where MRF margins go to die.
The Volatility Is Structural, Not Cyclical
The Northeast Recycling Council’s Q2 2025 MRF commodity values survey puts numbers to what operators already feel. Blended commodity values opened Q1 2025 at roughly $102 per ton, slipped 6% to $96.21 in Q2, then fell another 21.9% to $75.14 by Q3. That’s a swing of nearly $27 per ton across three quarters, with no corresponding drop in labor costs.
This isn’t an outlier year. That range, from the low $70s to just over $100, is the operating environment. Facilities that build their cost structure around the top of that range are one bad quarter away from a margin problem they can’t absorb.
Labor Is The Cost Variable Operators Can Actually Control
Commodity prices are external. Labor costs aren’t. When prices fall, an overstaffed line takes the hit from two directions: lower revenue per ton and fixed costs that don’t budge. When prices recover, a workforce that’s been cut too aggressively loses throughput at exactly the moment buyers are ready to pay for it.
Waste Management has responded by investing heavily in automation, targeting a 30% to 40% reduction in labor costs across its MRF network. Most operators aren’t writing those checks. For them, flexible staffing is the equivalent lever. Same objective, different mechanism.
The Baseline Problem: Sorters Are Hard to Keep
Commodity swings aside, MRF staffing is already unstable by nature.
Waste Management fills each sorting role with nine to twelve people per year, per plant. Most workers don’t make it past a single shift. To maintain 2,500 to 3,000 sorter positions across its network, the company cycles through 14,000 to 15,000 workers annually. That’s not a retention failure. That’s the industry.
Sorter roles are physically demanding, safety-sensitive, and historically low-wage. Churn is built into the model. A staffing strategy that bets on retention alone will lose here every time. The model that works assumes the churn and builds a reliable pipeline of pre-vetted workers who can step onto the line and function safely from day one.
What Commodity Responsive Staffing Looks Like
The difference between a reactive staffing model and a commodity-responsive one comes down to timing. Reactive models respond to margin pressure after it hits. Commodity-responsive models are already positioned to move.
When prices drop, operators can draw down on the flexible portion of the workforce without cutting the permanent staff who carry institutional knowledge and will be needed when volumes recover. When prices rebound, or when EPR program volume increases, the operator scales back up without rebuilding the bench from scratch.
Facilities that take this further by embedding a dedicated on-site team with its own supervisor see the benefit compound. Continuous coaching, embedded oversight, and peer learning reduce the disruption from turnover in ways that a rotating pool of new workers simply can’t replicate.
The Staffing Partner With Recycling Experience Differentiation
A general labor agency fills roles. A staffing partner with recycling and waste management experience places workers who understand sorting line demands, know basic material handling safety protocols, and arrive prepared for what the job actually involves.
The difference shows up fast. A partner with a thin bench can’t scale when volume spikes. A partner without industry experience sends workers who leave at lunch on day one. Both problems show up in the throughput report and the cost-per-ton line before the first shift ends.
Is Your Staffing Model Ready for The Next Price Report?
Commodity prices will keep moving. The question for MRF operators is whether their staffing model moves with them. A fixed headcount turns every price swing into a margin hit. A flexible model turns those same swings into a manageable variable instead of an operational crisis.
Snelling works with MRF operators to build labor models and pipelines that flex with the market, backed by a pre-vetted workforce that understands recycling environments. Contact a Snelling office near you to get started.
