Image 1 / 4
In a large metal bin labeled only for “metals” at the recycling site on Highway 34, Griffith laments a colony of plastic superhero toys dumped in the corner, but quickly shifts focus to a bloom growing near the figurines.
“Is that a tomato plant or a watermelon plant?” Griffith asks fellow worker Johnny Myers.
“Where?” asks Myers.
“Growing over there in the corner,” Griffith says pointing. “Anything can live in garbage.”
Thankfully for the county, small fruit plants aren't the only green recycling grows.
NEWBERRY'S GREEN
During the last fiscal year, Newberrians recycled 5,338 tons and brought $177,501 back to county revenue.
With each ton recycled, Newberry taxpayers save $44, which is the present cost of garbage being disposed into a landfill, Griffith says.
“It makes you feel proud to see what you have accomplished with garbage,” says Griffith. “Otherwise, that garage would have gone into a landfill or held up a space in the ground.“
Eco-conscious Danielle Maccaroni of Newberry and her son, Sean, 3, make regular trips to the Highway 34 drop off. They toss cardboard packaging and soda cans into the various labeled trailers onsite.
Maccaroni also reuses cardboard and selectively buys items with little packaging.
Why all the trouble?
“Supposedly (we're) reducing our impact on things,” says Maccaroni.
She and others are among a growing number of Newberry recyclers who defy a reported nationwide downward trend in recycling.
“We probably have a fourth more recycling than we did last year,” said Griffith who started in recycling work in 1996. “It has grown every year since I've been here.”
THE DATA
The first Newberry County recycling site opened in December 1993 and its recycling data only goes back to fiscal year 2000-2001.
But since that first fiscal year of data and its 1,124 tons, the county has increased recycling nearly five times that amount.
Griffith credits the increase to education. She makes visits to area schools advocating recycling three or four times every year.
“If you can get a fifth grader and under to (recycle) you don't have to worry about the parents,” said Griffith. “The biggest thing is educating the public.”
Convenience is another key to keeping recycling efforts up, Griffith says.
“Because if it's not convenient, they wouldn't do it,” she says. “I wouldn't.”
MAKING IT EASY
With permission from local businesses, the county placed 23 trailers around the county to catch waste.
Furniture stores in particular, Griffith says, have a high outflow of recyclable corrugated cardboard, or “wavy center” cardboard.
The county is also updating its collection-to-vendor transport with new metal drop-off bins instead of the large, cage-like trailers.
That way, a collection truck can easily empty and compact what's collected, instead of hauling around trailers that have “a lot of air space,” says Griffith.
The 11 replaced trailers will join the 25 others offered to area business and schools for recycling collection.
Recycler Heather O'Dell lives in Newberry's city limits and sees room for even more convenience.
She visited friends in Oregon this summer and admired Seattle's curbside paper, plastic and aluminum pickup system.
“I wonder if we had pickup if it would increase people's willingness to recycle,” O'Dell says.
“I was so impressed that Seattle was doing so much. It was like it was second nature for them.
“All of their household items are picked up at their curb and I wish that we had a system that would make it more amenable for people to recycle from their homes.”
GREEN EXPENSE
City Manager Eric Budds says city staff have explored the possibility of curbside recycling pickup, but found the costs outweigh the work.
He says the city would have to bear the cost of a pickup system, because the county did not offer any financial assistance when they discussed the matter.
Budds feels the only way to pay for the effort would be to increase citizens' solid waste fee.
“The cost would be significant,” says Budds.
But even with streamlined services, most recycling efforts don't bring enough money in to be self-supporting.
“I don't know of any recycling program that pays for itself,” says Budds.
Every month, Griffith gets a yellow sheet from the Department of Health and Environmental Control listing the going rate for recyclables.
Griffith doesn't like to jump from vendor to vendor, but still calls around for the best prices.
And prices can change dramatically in five or six months, she says, depending on the economy.
“It's like playing the stock market,” Griffith says. “I always keep my ears open for a better place to send our products.”
WHAT'CHA GOT?
Currently, plastic brings a relatively small return at 3 cents a pound, and glass “brings nothing and is actually hard to get rid of,” says Griffith.
However, she says “aluminum is the big thing now.”
But even as a hot item, aluminum has dropped to roughly 55 cents a pound in the past six months.
About three years ago, aluminum brought $1 per pound.
Griffith says Newberry County's aluminum can collection is in competition with places around town like the fire department that collect cans for goodwill projects.
At the county's busiest collection sites, it takes about six months to fill a trailer with aluminum cans.
A full trailer worth of cans can then be compressed into a bale weighing around 300 pounds, which brings $165.
Although only three fulltime employees and an unpaid inmate crew staff area sites, “recycling does not pay for itself,” says Griffith. “I don't think it ever will.“
Even on large metal cash bins that can bring a one-time amount of $25,000, recycling efforts outweigh recycling profit.
And that's where earth-friendly benefits take the advocacy reins.
Recycling reduces garbage, the use of virgin material and need for landfill space, say environmental advocates.
“I just enjoy it. We're saving the county, saving the citizens, saving our environment,” says Griffith. “It's interesting to see what we can keep from going in a landfill.”
Post a Comment
