Agenda - 09-16-2010 - 2 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Draft Chapter 3 Solid Waste Planning Update Plannin� This chapter follows the outline in the State plan guidance document. Thus it sta.rts with general planning guidelines followed by description of the work by the Solid Waste Management Department and the Solid Waste Plan Work Group on each plan element and includes a timetable for the coming year along with a description of likely activities in years to come. Appendix F contains the detailed descriptions of the various planning elements listed element by element with source reduction,composting,recycling etc Orange County's has maintained its long-term goal of 61%per capita reduction in solid waste landfilled but has removed any timetable for achieving that goal. The prior date set for achieving the goal was 2006. The County has continued to make progress towards the goal,reaching 50% reduction per capita in 2007-08 and during FY 2008-09 achieved its highest waste reduction rate ever of 54.2%per capita. These types of incremental improvements can continue as long as the BOCC continues to enable the Solid Waste Management Department operation through its budgetary and policy decisions and the Department retains the operational and fiscal flexibility to pursue new opporiunities as they arise. Historically the people and businesses of the County have responded well to new waste reduction and recycling initiatives or waste disposal restrictions that are presented. Extrapolating from the data collected in the 2010 one-week waste composition analysis, if about 50%of what is recyclable at the curb that now remains in the waste stream were able to be recycled plus 25%of that recyclable at dropoff sites,the County could achieve a waste reduction rate in the 57%+range.Reducing the final few percent to reach the goal would have to be gained primarily through waste reduction, extraordinarily high recycling rates driven by regulation or economic incentives, diversion of large amounts of organic material or opening of markets for an array of materials that have been considered unrecyclable or,practically speaking,non- recoverable. The recent additions of#2 (�IDPE)and#5 (PP) rigid non-bottle plastics at drop off sites, adding old electronic media with electronics,the residential cardboard ban and implementing permanent sales of backyard compost bins are examples of those strategies. It is possible to achieve our goal, as it appears that our MSW generation rate remains steady while population increases slowly at 1.5%to 2%per year. Until last year,the total amount landfilled per capita had continued to decrease, even when what is landfilled out-of-county that we can account for is included as it is in each year's state report. Following projected landfill closure in early 2013, no plans have yet been made for long term disposal. The County has conducted preliminary dialog with the City of Durham about use of their transfer station for MSW transshipment and it appears the County will take the tons under its control to the City of Durham transfer station. The various Town managers and the County Manager have begun dialog on whether to develop a cooperative partnership to all ship waste to the same location or determine that they should each make their own arrangement for disposal. Those discussions are ongoing and have not yet resulted in any recommendations to the elected bodies. Other operations now conducted at the Eubanks Road facility are projected to continue including construction and demolition waste burial,yard waste and clean wood waste mulching, collection and transfer of tires,white goods, scrap metal, and conventional recyclables. 33