Garbage in ... and then what?

Trucks already have stopped dumping trash at the incinerator, where Charleston County has burned most of its garbage for the past 20 years. By the end of the year, all the trash left in the pit will be burned and the place will close for good.

The county is working to come up with a long-term plan to dispose of about 190,000 tons of garbage that it previously burned each year.

The incinerator's closing puts the county at a crossroads.

Some county leaders say they plan to seize the opportunity and develop one of the best solid-waste and recycling programs in the Southeast.

County Councilwoman Colleen Condon said that when trying to decide whether to close the incinerator, council members first thought they had only two options: extending the incinerator contract an additional 20 years or dumping all the county's waste in the Bees Ferry Landfill.

"But there are more choices than option A and option B," she said.

The county, however, had to come up with a short-term plan for handling the garbage it once burned in the incinerator until its long-term plan is complete.

That plan includes continuing to dump some of the garbage at Bees Ferry and shipping at least 250 tons each day to the private Oakridge Landfill in Dorchester County. The move has drawn complaints from some Dorchester government leaders and nearby residents.

The long-term plan will require increased rates of recycling and other means of reducing the amount of garbage the county produces.

But Charleston County has a long way to go when it comes to recycling. A consultant determined this year that it now recycles 10 percent of the stream of waste. County Council subsequently set a goal to boost the rate to 40 percent in the next five years.

The county's current recycling rate is low compared with some other parts of the country.

Recycling leader

San Francisco is one the nation's leaders in recycling.

Mark Westlund, spokesman for that city's environment department, said it recycles 72 percent of the stream of solid waste. It passed the 40 percent mark about nine years ago, he said.

For households, it runs a "pay as you throw" program as an incentive to boost recycling, he said. Residents each get three disposal containers: one for paper, plastic and glass recyclables; one for compostable food waste; and a third for garbage.

It's been mandatory since October that all residents and businesses use all three containers.

"It's illegal to throw away a plastic bottle," he said. And residents can be fined for not participating in the program. "But it's not about money," Westlund said. "It's about getting people to use the system."

The cost of the program for residents is based on the size of their garbage container, he said, so the more people recycle, the less they pay. The average household pays $21 per month for weekly pick up and disposal.

The city recycles all plastic items except plastic film bags, such as dry cleaning bags. But such bags are less of a problem since the city banned stores from using them for their customer's purchases. Stores must use paper bags made of 100 percent recycled paper.

The city also recycles food scraps. The scraps are taken to a facility about 70 miles out of town where they are composted. Then it sells the compost to area farms and vineyards. "Farmers love it," Westlund said.

The city also uses a system called "digestion" with a small portion of its food waste, he said. The waste is heated at a low temperature and converted into energy. The "sludge" that's left is composted, he said.

Closer to home

Mecklenberg County in North Carolina, which includes the city of Charlotte, has been working to boost its recycling program since 1999, said senior environmental specialist Michael Talbert.

It measures its success by how much it reduces the average amount of trash produced for each person in the county. If the county is recycling more, it will produce less trash.

In 1999, the rate was 1.96 tons per person; in 2008 it was 1.67 tons per person. The county's goal is to reduce the trash to 1.27 tons per person by 2019, he said. That would represent a 35 percent decline in garbage produced since 1999.

The cities and towns collect the recycling, Talbert said. They pick up plastic bottles numbered 1 and 2, glass, cans, paper and cardboard. Next summer, they will begin to collect all plastic and aerosol cans and allow residents to mix all recyclables in one container, a system known as "single stream."

County residents pay a user fee of about $18 per year to process the recycling, and the county is making money on the recyclables it sells, he said. It also processes construction waste and composts yard waste.

And the county recently passed an ordinance that requires all businesses, as well as any non-residence such as churches and schools, to recycle paper and cardboard. And North Carolina requires all businesses that sell alcohol to recycle all beverage containers, Talbert said.

"We're trying to change the mind-set and make this a recycling culture," he said.

National trends

Ed Skernolis, vice president of recycling for the national group Keep America Beautiful, said most places that are trying to increase their recycling rates are moving toward the "single stream" system that allows all recyclables in one container.

Workers at a recycling center sort the plastic, glass, cans, paper and cardboard. The systems tends to produce higher recycling rates, he said.

Very few places pull the recyclables when they are mixed with garbage, he said. That system is expensive because it's labor intensive, and many of the recyclables are contaminated.

Most programs are not relying heavily on "emerging technologies," Skernolis said. Those technologies generally convert a particular portion of the waste stream into various kinds of fuel.

"Most of the really advanced things are for communities trying to push their numbers really high," he said. "Not many places trying to get to 40 percent say we need the most exotic technology out there."

First steps

Charleston County Council will consider including some new technologies in its larger plan, Condon said.

The county in October put out a request for information from companies that do such work, and it has received 10 responses. Mitch Kessler of Kessler Consulting, who was hired by the county to help design the long-range plan, said he is reviewing the proposals and will make a report on them to council members early in the year.

The county has taken some other steps, including getting approval to expand its compost facility at Bees Ferry so it can compost all the yard waste it collects.

Diverting all the yard waste from the landfill alone will increase the county's recycling rate from 10 to 20 percent, Kessler has said.

In one of its first possible missteps, County Council seriously considered approving a new, private landfill for construction-waste in the rural Adams Run community, before learning there was ample space in an existing landfill in the county.

The project, on which consideration has been deferred for six months, drew strong opposition from area residents and the Coastal Conservation League.

In addition to increasing household recycling and composting, the county can get closer to its goal by recycling more construction waste and boosting the number of businesses that recycle.

Condon said the public can expect to see a lot of movement in the next few months. "I wish we had all of the answers today, but we'll have a better program for doing it carefully," she said.

Reach Diane Knich at 937-5491 or dknich@postandcourier.com.