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

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Alex Castro: I have seen in the press where Chatham County is looking at establishing a solid waste landfill and I wondering if the County is in contact with them. Are they participatin€;in any discussions with them concerning this? Also has anything been done in that regard wiith Alamance County and the use of their solid landfill. Are you looking at establishing a regional landfill that might be used by all the counties in the immediate area? Wilson responds that we are aware of what Chatham County is doing and try to keep up with it a good deal. It is my understanding they're in the process of deciding what they're going to do, if they are going to build a transfer station or a landfill or whatever. We're in ongoing communication with them at the staff level,but I don't know what's going on at the highei• levels. As far as Alamance, I speak to my counterpart there regularly. Four years ago their elected officials conveyed that their citizens did not want our waste brought into their County. "We don't really want your out of County waste coming over here."In Randolph County they have decided to site a new landfill. Randolph is not quite as convenient,but it's not that far away either. We do try to maintain awareness of what's going on in other communities around uis. Stan Cheren: As a resident of rural Orange County I'd like to take the curbside recycling idea that was brought up earlier and expand on it. Rural recycling pickup is a great service but only in town where people have trash collection[meaning curbside recycling,not `rural' as stal;ed]. Similarly if you live in a rural area and you take your trash to the convenience centers it is�most convenient to also take your recycling. Rura1 [curbside] recycling is not an effective servi.ce for most rural residents. Because it is not advancing the County's recycling goals we ask that you modify the plan and replace the option of expanding recycling with the option of turning it into a voluntary service. For comparison we found benclunarks on rural recycling for unincorporated areas for two� other counties—Catawba and Forsyth,both only offer curbside recycling to residents who recei;ve curbside trash collection. In Catawba County residents who use curbside recycling receive a$4 per month discount in their curbside collection fees. In Forsyth County where they are looking at the service now Commissioners are considering whether to make it voluntary. In rural Orange County you've reported that only 5,000 out of 21,000 households use curbside service for trash. Yet the curbside recycling service is already mandatory [meaning the ff;e is, not the service per se] for 13,500 households along with the mandatory$38 fee whether the service is used or not. Only 60% of the residents that get the service use it and most of thiem use convenience centers too. Given that the service is marginally effective,why do we want to extend curbside recycling to 14,500 and ultimately 19,000 households? Rura1 residents are strongly committed to rec.ycling but not the curbside service. There are many services that are not funded and we'd like to see t�es and fees spent on services that are critical. We ask the language in the plan about expanding [curbside) recycling be removed and replaced with language that suggests the Couniy explore making the service voluntary, so that only residents that want the service receive it and pay for it. Steve Graf: As a resident of the county the services you provide are the most tangible be,nefit that I get from my property taxes. Thank you for allowing us to participate in the Solid`JVaste Work Group meeting two weeks ago. We were pleased to see expanded convenience ce:nter hours to the Work Group report,but disappointed that the commitment wasn't added to the three- year plan update. I understand it is import for the county to spend time and effort to upgrade the 63