Orange County NC Website
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to 12,000 tons a year of waste that is far less dense and not as readily compactable as <br />conventional MSW. <br />The County is now engaged in a site search for an MSW transfer station as a resolution <br />passed by the Board of Orange County Commissioners (BOCC) in 2001 stated that no <br />new MSW landfill would be constructed in Orange County. The County now seeks to <br />locate a 25-acre site for the transfer station, which could accommodate waste <br />management activities as well as provide ample buffer. This transfer station site search is <br />being led directly by the BOCC with assistance of an engineering consultant and <br />scheduled to be completed by the end of calendar 2008. Design, permitting and <br />construction are to follow that. An opening date is reasonably projected at mid-2011. <br />The timing of the projected landfill closure in early 2011 compared to projected transfer <br />station completion in mid-2011, creates at least a several month projected gap. Managing <br />MSW during that time period will be challenging, expensive and environmentally <br />difficult and will become more so as the new rules governing what was formerly <br />considered C&D further reduce the lined landfill space. <br />Planning Approach and Progress Towards Goals <br />While Orange County is the lead agency in overall solid waste management in Orange <br />County, it continues to actively engage with its partners, the three Towns and UNC as <br />well as citizens and businesses overall. The partnership is partly institutionalizedthrough <br />the interlocal agreement which stipulates all waste controlled by the four local <br />governments is to be delivered to the Orange County landfill. While UNC is not a <br />signatory to the interlocal agreement, it continues to direct its waste collection contractor <br />to deliver its waste to the Orange County landfill. In exchange, the University receives <br />collection, at no fee, of organic waste including food, lab animal bedding and other <br />separated putrescible wastes under auspices of Orange County's contract for diverting <br />commercial food waste to a commercial compost facility. <br />The intergovernmental partnership is also manifested through the work of the Solid <br />Waste Advisory Board (SWAB) whose eight voting members are selected, two each, by <br />the elected boards of the County and each of the three Towns, with UNC as an ongoing <br />ex-officio partner. The SWAB advises the County on solid waste matters, budget and <br />policy. In 2005, the Solid Waste Plan Work Group was established to further the specific <br />objective of creating a more comprehensive solid waste plan and it continues to review <br />technical materials and deliver its opinion and recommendations on matters related to the <br />reports referenced above. That group includes the SWAB membership, an elected official <br />from each of the four jurisdictions~and technical staff from each jurisdiction's <br />Sanitation/Solid Waste Division. <br />Service Provision <br />The County continues to provide recycling and landfill services county-wide. Provision <br />of recycling collections by one agency across multiple jurisdictions is relatively unusual, <br />but continues to be effective here in terms of the economy-of--scale and centralized <br />provision of solid waste and recycling education and information. The whole County has <br />