VIERA - Brevard County's money-losing curbside recycling program may get canned.

The 16-year-old county program cost 90,702 residents in the unincorporated area $1.665 million to have Waste Management pick up the newspapers, glass bottles, plastic jugs and aluminum cans from their driveways. Cities would not be included because most have their own programs.

When they found out the program was operating at such a loss, commissioners Ron Pritchard and Helen Voltz called for a review of the program's cost versus benefits to see whether it should be discontinued.

"I'm not in the business of losing money," Pritchard said. "Lots of folks (recycle) because it makes them feel good."

If the program were to be discontinued, customers would have to either toss recyclable materials in with the rest of their garbage or truck it down to the nearest recycling center themselves.

"The more convenient it is, the more people will participate," said Pam Shoemaker, head of the county's recycling program.

Last year, the county recycled 500,000 tons of solid waste -- reducing the landfill's intake by 41 percent. That extended the life of the landfill by a month and a half last year, solid waste officials said, which in turn saved the county $29,000 in new landfill costs at a rate of $1.92 per cubic yard.

Residential recycling last year accounted for only 10,000 tons -- or 2 percent of all the recycled materials collected in the unincorporated areas. Without curbside collections, the county would still have a 40 percent recycling rate.

It seems like too much spent for too little return and even less impact, Pritchard said. He said he'd rather find a cheaper way to meet that goal, and pass the savings on to the public.

"I'd prefer giving that money back to the taxpayer," Pritchard said.

Not much he can do right now, though. The county is halfway through a five-year contract extension with Waste Management to haul trash. Solid Waste Director Euripides Rodriguez said he'll ask the board on March 7 whether it wants to renegotiate its contract with Waste Management or seek out another hauler.

Rose Velez of Viera doesn't mind paying extra if it helps the environment.

"I think that's a fair amount if the products are being recycled in a proper way," she said. "If we're losing money and it's not for a good purpose then we should not continue to do it, but if recycling is good for the environment, then yeah."

In 1988, Florida passed a law requiring all counties to recycle and handed out grants to help them out. Those grants have disappeared but the mandate remains. Counties must pay for the programs on their own.

"To be honest, the impetus was state Legislature," said Debbie Sponsler, who runs Orange County's solid waste program. "You had to do this and here's some money to help you. A lot of counties have been struggling as that money dried up."

Brevard and other counties could run its program better by only recycling things it can make money on, like aluminum cans and corrugated cardboard, said Howell Heck, a civil engineering professor at Florida Tech who has researched and teaches solid waste management.

It should stop recycling things that don't net as much, like glass, he said.

"One of the most important resources we have is money and people don't like to think of money as a resource," Heck said. "Saving a tree is a resource; saving a river is a resource. Well, saving money is a resource."

All of Brevard's residential garbage customers pay about $19 a year on their tax bill for curbside recycling -- but only 45 percent actually walk their filled bins to the curb.

Most cities throughout the county also contract with Waste Management for recycling, excluding Rockledge and Titusville, which have their own programs.

If every customer participated, the residential volume would double countywide, but the program would still lose about $1.3 million a year, Shoemaker said.

Making it mandatory is not an option. Pritchard said he doesn't want to hire garbage police to check whether people are throwing out recycled materials with the trash.

The county could open drop-off centers where people could take their recyclable materials. Manned drop-off centers would still cost money to operate, Shoemaker said.

Or the county could sort the waste once it gets to the landfill. About 2,500 tons of trash -- 25 percent of it yard waste -- is hauled to the landfill daily.

"That's impossible," Shoemaker said.

No recycling program makes a profit, Shoemaker said. Nobody expects them to.

At least Brevard is doing better than surrounding counties. Orange County's program last year cost $3.2 million and made $215,000 -- a net loss of $3 million.

"We never went in saying we'd make money off of this program, but do we try to recover some costs? Definitely," Sponsler said.

Solid waste officials tout recycling's other -- more indirect -- benefits.

Recycling cuts down on greenhouse gases and energy costs by reducing the demand for raw material, which requires more oil consumption to extract ore from the ground or cut down trees, then produce the material and ship it, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. For example, making cans out of recycled aluminum requires 95 percent less energy than making cans from scratch.

"When you put the whole picture together, recycling is the right thing to do," Shoemaker said.