Agenda - 12-06-2010 - 7c - Laserfiche WebLink

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building operators, students and faculty and monitor those containers under its jurisdiction to keep them free of regulated materials or they too incur penalties or sanctions invoked by IJNC staff. In general,the Towns also support the County-wide recycling program by passing ordinances correlated to the County ordinances, for example the County ban on landfilling residential cardboard was coordinated with collection bans in a11 three jurisdictions. The Towns of Carrboro and Hillsborough distribute recycling bins from their offices. All three Towns notify the County of new residences slated to receive recycling as well as waste collection and provide recycling information to new residents as they move in along with the jurisdiction's own solid waste information. Each Town's web site also has a link to the recycling and solid waste management web page. Consideration of Alternative Technologies In 2008,the Solid Waste Advisory Board commissioned a study of alternative technologies by consultant Gershman, Brickner and Bratton(GBB)that identified incineration of waste with energy recovery as the most effective near-term solution. Total cost for building a waste combustion plant was calculated at about$100 per ton, approximately twice the cost of current landfill disposal at the relatively small scale that Orange County operates of about 50,000 tons a year of MSW. GBB also concluded that only mass combustion of waste-to-energy was mature enough as a technology to handle the great majority of the County's waste using a single technology though analysis did review other technologies including plasma arc, large scale anaerobic digestion and refuse-derived-fuel. Following the December 2009 decision not to site a transfer station in Orange County for at least three to five yeazs, various citizens and citizen groups have urged the County to consider other alternative technologies for handling the county's solid waste and possibly other wastes such as biosolids, medical waste and other difficult to manage materials. As part of the motion the Board adopted in December, 2009,the Board requested that the SWAB undertake a more complete review of alternative technologies during 2010-11. In Apri12010 the SWAB hosted its first presentation of the plasma arc technology by inventor Dr.Louis Circeo of Georgia lnstitute of Technology. Future technology reviews and presentations are also planned with a report by the SWAB back to the board following completion of more comprehensive review projected in 2011. Alternative technologies may come to play a role in managing waste and recycling options,but most likely there will always be some residual to manage as well as a variety of very difficult-to- manage materials such as dead animals, obsolete mobile homes and disaster debris. Possible regional solutions are not clearly delineated nor are the potential partners as each jurisdiction has its own needs and wants. Further,the geographically most-likely partners are in difFerent places on the solid waste decision-making spectrum. Planning Approach and Progress Towards Waste Reduction and Disposal Goals Orange County is the lead agency in overall solid waste management in Orange County; it continues to actively engage with its partners,the three Towns and iTNC as well as citizens and businesses overall. There is a general understanding since the first plan submittal in 1997,that a 41