Agenda - 04-15-2008-6d - Laserfiche WebLink

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both under subcontract to Olver, Inc. the County's solid waste consultant, developed a series of reports on the solid waste and recycling system to assist in decision making. The reports covered the following topics: Review of the County's options and potential for increasing recycling to divert more materials from each sub-sector -residential, multifamily and commerciaUnon-residential and potential reduction and cost to each sub-sector, Market-based assessment of the availability of materials processing services from various private MRFs in the region compare to building apublicly-owned MRF, Solicitation of information on the costs of constructing a MRF in Orange County to process a larger tonnage than is now collected, possibly including UNC Chapel Hill's recycling tonnage, (18,000 tons is a minimum. to make a local MRF work well financially, we're at about 13,000 dry tons, UNC is at about 3,000) Evaluation of the drop off site and convenience center systems and alternatives to the current system, Evaluation of the cost-effectiveness and environmental impact of a rural residential solid waste collection franchise compared to the current system of convenience centers, public curbside recycling to 65% of households and private, market-based, laissez-fair waste collection, Evaluation of conversion of all collection programs to commingled recycling with transfer to private processors from current facility including minimization of current in-house materials sorting, baling and processing for market. At the writing of this report, two additional studies have been presented for evaluation. One is the development of various scenarios for commercial recycling and waste collection including: -- highly-regulated waste disposal, banning a variety of materials from disposal presumably to `force' recycling with market-based private collections of waste and recyclables, -- franchised waste collection with recycling collections by the franchisee or public sector (County), and -- publicly-provided collection of recycling with a variety of public and private waste collection services available on the open market. The other submitted study is an evaluation of franchised waste collection throughout Orange County with various combinations of jurisdictions potentially participating. The study concluded that creating a franchise does not appear to have great value in reducing waste collection costs within the urban areas, but may have other value through reducing air emissions and other environmental impacts from collection through economies-of- 5