New faces are showing up at area recycling centers at around the same rate as gas prices and long-term unemployment are spiking.

However, the apparent mainstreaming of recycling locally evidently isn’t all money-driven.

“We see more new faces than I can count every day,” said Ron Carlson, owner of The Maine Recycling Center on Greenback Lane in Orangevale. “There’s an increase in customers from 100 to 150 a day.”

At the end of June 2007, gas was around $3 a gallon, according to the Consumer Affairs publication. It’s up around 49 percent from that a year later.

U.S. employers shed 63,000 jobs in February 2008, the most in five years, and the number of people unemployed for at least 26 weeks has risen to a current 1.6 million – up 37 percent in the past year, according to Wikipedia and the Wall Street Journal.

Alan Williams, co-owner of FRS Recycling Center on Mother Lode Drive near Placerville, estimated his company’s intake of recyclables could be up as much as 35 percent in recent months.

“It’s gas, and the economy in general, loss of jobs,” Williams said. “People are watching their pennies.”

Recycling at commercial centers takes vehicles, and vehicles take fuel, and fuel takes money.

“People comment that it’s kind of a wash sometimes, their gas is going up so much,” Williams said. “If they get $10, that’s a little over two gallons. Some people don’t have a business head – they just want the money.”

It pays to save up lots of recyclables for one trip, he said.

Co-owner Paulette Williams said experience shows her the recent spike in recycling isn’t all about money.

“A lot more people are recycling cardboard, and scrap plastic, such as laundry detergent containers, milk jugs,” she said. “People are taking the time to rinse them out and hold onto them. It’s not just an economic part, but helping the earth out. People are bringing in big bags of shredded office paper, which they don’t get money for. It’s not just the money.”

Besides, a trend could be emerging in offsetting fuel costs for recycling trips -- taking other people’s paying recyclables to the center for money.

“My husband and I routinely pick up bottles and cans when we are out shopping or walking in the neighborhood,” wrote Jane Bogner of Valcore Recycling on the Vallejo-based company’s Web site. “Upon returning from shopping one day last week, Gary brought home an assortment of littered redemption-value containers that were worth 64 cents, which paid for the gas used on his recycling trip.”

Littered plastic bottles and aluminum cans, worth 4 cents or 8 cents apiece depending on size, still abound in California even after legislation raised redemption value by 60 percent.

The Telegraph’s Roger Phelps can be reached at rogerp@goldcountrymedia.com, or post a comment at folsomtelegraph.com