Fee increase likely

SWACO suffering from lack of trash?

Tuesday,  April 22, 2008 3:13 AM

By Barbara Carmen

 

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

 

More bad economic news: Even dumping the trash could become more expensive.

 

Franklin County's landfill officials are giving "fair warning" that fees could increase in 2009. And those fees are shouldered by taxpayers in Columbus, by homeowners in suburbs that charge households for collection, and by businesses that hire private haulers.

 

The Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio had a dismal first quarter: Revenue was down 6.7 percent; $8.6 million in 2008 compared with $9.2 million in 2007.

 

And operating costs skyrocketed -- up 9.2 percent through February.

 

Full story at:

http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/04/22/Trashup.ART_ART_04-22-08_A1_CJA0C4T.html?sid=101

I wrote a long response to this, but lost it right before posting (I had to reboot my pc. it wasn't anything this site did.)

 

Anyway, to summarize what I wrote about...

 

Syracuse, NY (actually, the county I believe) had a contract with a landfill to dispose of its trash.  When the contract expired 15 years ago, the price to dispose of a ton on trash went from $15/ton to $60+/ton.  At least a 4-fold increase overnight!!!!!

 

So the city embraced recycling in a big way.  All residents got a home recycling bin (just like what I now have in the Lebanon area) and all companies had to recycle too.  At work, I had 2 bins under my desk - one for recycled paper, and one for trash.  Each area had a paper recycle bin, and there were soda can recycle points through-out the building.  Even outdoor fesivals had seperate bins for recyclables vs non-recyclables.

 

The recycling centers kept upgrading their capacity, so that by the time I moved out, we were putting used pizza boxes into the home recycling bins.

 

It is ironic that we (residents) are trying to be better about using public resources (water usage, electric usage, land-fill usage), but as we do, the cost to operate the in-place structures keeps rising, so that the cost per unit keeps rising.  Too bad the government can't reduce expenses easily to match a drop in usage.  High fixed costs leads to cheaper per-unit costs, which actually is a detriment in the case of dealing with non-goods (polution, etc).

 

I have always found the recycling efforts of Ohioans to be quite inadequate.  However, I understand that Ohio is ahead of many other states when it comes to recycling. I guess there was never a cost dis-incentive to recycling here. 

 

If the cost of disposing of trash were to increase 4 fold, that would quickly change.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can speak to the Syracuse recycling. I lived there for 8 years, and they were like the recycling gestapo. I hardly threw away anything. But NY also charges a 5c deposit on soda and beer cans/bottles, which aids immensely in recycling efforts.

 

I was really well trained until I came out here and asked my (now) wife where the recycling bin was. Her response was "huh?". I've regressed immensely since then. Luckily my community is stepping up in those efforts, and in about a month they are handing out giant recycling bins to every household. All we have to do is dump the stuff in the cans. No need to separate paper/plastic/metal or anything. Couldn't be easier.

^ http://www.city.cleveland.oh.us/government/departments/pubservice/waste/collection.asp

But NY also charges a 5c deposit on soda and beer cans/bottles

 

Yes, I lived in Syracuse for nearly 15 years.  The Grocery stores were part of the recycling campaign.  All grocery stores had to accept soda/beer cans and bottles (including 2 liter soda bottles) since there was a 5cent deposit on every one.  But the stores also took used houshold batteries, and used plastic shopping bags.  There were special drop bins just inside most grocery stores to handle these items.  So we saved up our used batteries and excess plastic grocery bags, and periodically took them with us when we went to the grocery stores. 

 

Some of the smaller local grocery chains (ie. Peters) encouraged the locals to bring in their own canvas grocery bags, which the store cheerfully used in place of the plastic and paper bags.

 

When the family and friends from Ohio visited, they could not begin to comprehend how we recycled.  Everything they touched went straight into the trash can.  They could not understand why they were charged 30 cent deposit on a 6-pack of Coke when we went to the grocery store.  And when my wife and I returned to Ohio on visits, we could no more cope with the lack of recycling than our family could with recycling.  I was always looking for the blue recycle bin to put the bottles into.  We even got to the point where we had to collect our recycable material that we used in Ohio, put it into plastic bags, and drive it back to NY with us so we could put it into a blue bin.  It's not that we were being overly zelous about potecting the environment.  It's just that we were so conditioned to not putting things in the trash that we could no longer bring ourselves to do it, even on vacation in Ohio.  Thank God the cities here north of Cincy started the home recycle bin just before we moved back here.  However, I still stuggle 4 years later with what does and does not go into the recycle bin.  In Syracuse, we got reminders in the mail a couple of times a year, and special announcements about what new items could go into the recycle bins.

 

alas.....Maybe Ohio communities will get there some day.

 

 

  Ohio has more landfill space, so economically, we don't have as much incentive to recycle.

 

    Doesn't Ohio import garbage from New York to landfill?

 

    Denmark, the Netherlands, and a few other countries in that part of the world recycle almost everything. The reason: no landfill space.

Thanks to SWACO's generous range of acceptables, we recycle everything that can be recycled. It takes upwards of 5 weeks to fill our city trash can. Just wait'll we get the girl out of diapers. We'll be putting it out quarterly.

 

Some of the smaller local grocery chains (ie. Peters) encouraged the locals to bring in their own canvas grocery bags, which the store cheerfully used in place of the plastic and paper bags.

 

 

That's because Peter's is for people!

 

Just wait'll we get the girl out of diapers. We'll be putting it out quarterly.

 

I hear you. I have one down, two more to go. Although, on the upside, at the rate my kids are going, we could fill out a large enough area to move the Port Authority in about 5 years.

 

The biggest hurdle I've faced to date is to get my native Ohio family to get on board. I can only pick recyclables out of the trash for so long before I lose my resolve. I'm hoping the previously mentioned bins will make it ultimately easy enough to get everyone on board. Just...throw...it...in...the.....CAN!

But NY also charges a 5c deposit on soda and beer cans/bottles

...They could not understand why they were charged 30 cent deposit on a 6-pack of Coke when we went to the grocery store.  And when my wife and I returned to Ohio on visits, we could no more cope with the lack of recycling than our family could with recycling.  I was always looking for the blue recycle bin to put the bottles into.

 

 

Try moving to Ohio from 10¢ per/bottle Michigan. For months after I moved here I'd hoard bottles and bring them back to Detroit on visits.

 

Say. There's a Seinfeld episode in there somewhere...

I heard it costs money to recycle. The people upstairs do it but my room mate said it's like 20 bucks a year or something for them to collect it. Maybe that's not true. If they gave me a free bin and collected it for free, I'd do it.

Try moving to Ohio from 10¢ per/bottle Michigan. For months after I moved here I'd hoard bottles and bring them back to Detroit on visits.

 

That did not work in NY.  The bottles/cans had to have a lable on them that they contained a deposit, other wise you could not get one back.  Even the automated machines checked for that printing on the label.  So if you bought a 2-litter of Coke in Ohio, the label contains nothing about a deposit.  Take it to NY and you do not get any money for it if you turn it in. 

 

Same thing happened when you ripped the label off a bottle you purchased in NY.  After the part of the label that lists the 'deposit by state' was removed, you could not get your deposit back on the bottle.

 

I bet you could take a NY bottle to Michigan and get 10Cents for it!

 

Talking about the the cost of trash...

 

In Syracuse (Onondaga county) we had a houshold hazzardous waste day twice each year.  The county would set up a location and you could just drive up with your old paint cans, any used motor oil/old gasoline/antifreeze/etc you had, insecticides, cleaners, etc and drop them off.  The county collected it but I do not know what they did with it.  I don't know if the stuff eventually made it to a landfill or not.

 

When I moved back to Ohio, The city of Middletown had such a day the first year I was back.  I have not seen a hazardous waste day anywhere since then.

 

Do other municipalities hold these?  Does anyone know what happens to the waste that gets dropped off?

 

But NY also charges a 5c deposit on soda and beer cans/bottles

...They could not understand why they were charged 30 cent deposit on a 6-pack of Coke when we went to the grocery store.   And when my wife and I returned to Ohio on visits, we could no more cope with the lack of recycling than our family could with recycling.  I was always looking for the blue recycle bin to put the bottles into.

 

 

Try moving to Ohio from 10¢ per/bottle Michigan. For months after I moved here I'd hoard bottles and bring them back to Detroit on visits.

 

Say. There's a Seinfeld episode in there somewhere...

 

They use to do it in Ohio.  I can remember, up until the mid to late eighties at least (probably up to 85)  taking glass bottles back to the grocery store every week for the deposit.  I actually lived up in Detroit for work back in the late ninties.  I noticed that all bottles were clightly higher priced than they were in Ohio, so you were basically just getting the extra cost back.  I would continue to do it since we know some family in Michigan, but I rarely get a can or bottle with the Michigan logo on it to do it.

^I'd pull it off by returning the bottles to mom and pops, and it some cases, Trader Joe's. At a certain point, I got guilty/started feeling stupid, and stopped.

 

I've noticed pop prices are higher in Ohio than in Michigan. I can't figure out how this could be. The bottlers' chief complaint about the return laws is that they drive up the costs that in turn are passed along to the consumer. Industry lobbyists? Lying? The mind reels.

 

All of this is becoming more and more academic. Non-carbonated beverages are exempted (in MI) from the returns law, and most of the big sellers out there are teas, water and weird-ass energy drinks.

 

All in all, and seeing it from both sides (I owned a cafe that sold beverages and handled the returnables), despite being a minor hassle, Michigan's 32 year-old law works. I welcome more ways to creatively incentivize recycling.

...

 

When I moved back to Ohio, The city of Middletown had such a day the first year I was back.  I have not seen a hazardous waste day anywhere since then.

 

Do other municipalities hold these?  Does anyone know what happens to the waste that gets dropped off?

 

SWACO has a permanenet HHW pick up place here in Columbus, and I believe they still have a traveling drop-off event around the area on warm weather Saturdays. Looky here: http://www.swaco.org/SmartPeople/HHW.aspx