Recycling the soda and beer cans, newspapers, milk jugs, junk mail and other items that fill our hunter green bins was a losing deal for the city of Madison in November.

For the first time since April 2002, the city had to write a check to cover its recycling costs in November because of the low price of commodities.

For the first 10 months of 2008, the city received almost $700,000 from the sale of recyclables it collects. But in November, sale proceeds weren't enough to cover the $51 per ton fee charged by Waste Management to have the material sorted at its Germantown facility north of Milwaukee. So, the city had to pay $41,249. By comparison, the city received $36,609 in October from Waste Management, and it was $106,000 in July.

December figures won't be available until mid-January.

"The prices were really strong all year," said George Dreckmann, the city's recycling coordinator. "In the past, the decline in prices has been gradual and settles over a six-month period. In 2008, the decline was fast and sure so that over a two-month period there was a big swing and the markets just crashed," he said.

The drop in prices also resulted in a sharp decline in business for scrap dealers and others who buy and sell recyclable material. And for those collecting aluminium cans for extra cash, the payouts have dropped by almost half compared to July.

At Resource Solutions, 5493 Express Circle, near the Dane County Regional Airport, the slowdown has resulted in layoffs. The company, which specializes in scrap metal and electronics, has cut four people since October and now operates with 10 employees.

"A large chunk of our capital is tied up in our inventory, and if our inventory isn't moving, we don't have any cash flow," said Amanda Wilmarth, vice president of corporate development. "It's moving, but it's moving much more slowly than we're accustomed to."

Commodities soared in 2008 — including oil reaching $147 a barrel in July and gold shooting up to a record $1,033 an ounce in March — on a wave of unprecedented global growth, especially the booming economies in China and India.

But a large part of the buying, especially in the oil markets, was fed by speculators who believed demand would only soar. Prices began to skid as it became clear the U.S. economy was weakening rapidly — a trend exacerbated by the paralysis in the credit markets after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings in September.

Crude's plunge was the most dramatic, with a barrel dropping to $35 in late December, but other commodities like gold, wheat and copper also plunged.

Recyclables didn't escape the economic downturn.

Plastic used to make detergent and shampoo bottles sold for $195 a ton in November, down from $691 in September. Plastic for milk jugs dropped to $349 per ton in November compared to the year's high of $860 just a month earlier. Plastic for soda bottles dropped more than 73 percent from September to November. The price of recycled newsprint dropped 91 percent from August to November.

"There's nothing coming in," said Gary Bachus, yard manager for Samuel's Recycling Co., 4400 Sycamore Ave., on the Far East Side. "Prices are so low people have stopped bringing it in. They may be sitting on it waiting for it to come back. And manufacturing is flat, so there's nothing coming in from the manufacturing sector."

Those in the recycling business are hoping prices will rebound soon, but they believe the increases won't be as rapid as the slide of late 2008.

Dreckmann, who ordered 650 large residential recycling carts for 2009 after running out in 2008, said one way to increase the value of recyclable material would be to require more recyclable content to be used in newsprint, beverage containers and shampoo and detergent bottles.

"We could help strengthen the domestic recycling industry and that would be good for the long term," Dreckmann said. "It would give us more opportunity."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.