Agenda - 12-04-1995 - VIII-G - Laserfiche WebLink

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i 8 3 10/95 Landfill staff and representatives of the three -major waste haulers (BFI, Waste Management, Waste Industries) , two minor haulers (Barbour, Johnson) and UNC Recycling office meet to discuss potential ban 10/95 Letter mailed to all businesses throughout Orange County describing dates and penalties of potential disposal ban. The landfill staff also plans a second county-wide newsletter during November, 1995 with additional information about the potential cardboard disposal ban and a list of resources useful in complying with the- ban and avoiding the proposed penalty fee.' As budgeted for the current fiscal year, in preparation for the ban, Orange Community Recycling has eliminated collection of commercial cardboard. The decision to eliminate current commercial services was made with equity and practicality considerations in mind. Previously, the landfill fund has provided commercial cardboard collection to businesses who requested the service and generated enough cardboard to warrant collections. With a disposal ban, we believed that we could not practically provide service to all generators in Orange County without a significant capital investment and tipping fee increase. Thus, if we continued to provide commercial collections to current customers only, there would be an inequitable situation in which some businesses were provided with governmental collections and others had to utilize the private sector. The staff has been working with current customers and other businesses to transition and acquire service from the private sector. There are at least six private firms in this region who are able to collect corrugated cardboard and now do so in response to the cardboard bans in effect in Alamance, Chatham and Wake counties. The names of those firms have been provided to generators of cardboard in Orange County. The current price of private cardboard collection service has been quoted at $28 to $30 per month for a dumpster and once weekly collection. The current sale price for cardboard is around $10 per ton, but has fluctuated greatly over the past year starting around $10 per ton reaching a high around $140 per ton before returning to around $10 per ton. The extreme fluctuations of cardboard prices make it difficult to set up revenue sharing collection contracts or to predict the profitability of cardboard recycling. In addition to working with- customers to acquire private service, drop-off site capacity has been expanded and frequency of drop-off site collections were scheduled to increase to accommodate customers who wish._ to . deliver _their cardboard to a drop-off i facility.