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ST. CHARLES — SOLID WASTE PROGRAM By WILLIAM BIRTH Statutory mandates, headlines highlighting environmental concerns and residential demands for cost effective service delivery have come to epitomize the definition of solid waste management for municipal officials. The objectives have always been clear for elected representatives: have the refuse picked up on a timely basis and keep the cost for doing so at a tolerable level. To the chagrin of many boards, councils and their staffs the state, the environment and now citizens are demanding more! Solid waste is to be handled in an environmentally sound (safe) manner, appropriate landfill space is to be maintained or provided and waste to energy plants constructed (neither to be sited in close proximity to residential, recreational, business or open space areas, have the remotest possible adverse impact on ground water, the surrounding environment or the air we breath). As well, the cost to dispose of the ever increasing amounts of waste being generated is to be contained, discounted for senior citizens and more equitable systems of charging for disposal service developed for those who generate less waste. Of course, the task must be accomplished with a minimum amount of bureaucratic delay while keeping every citizen in the community fully appraised of all actions taken. Sound familiar? While we do not purport to have all the answers to all the questions that may be popping up in your community, I believe, we touched all the municipal bases and have driven home some practical solid waste management solutions that are universally adaptable in the comprehensive solid waste program we developed for St. Charles, Illinois. I won't lengthen the article by wading through each phase of the decision making process. Suffice it to say, it involves citizen input, policy commitment, comprehensive bid specifications, an intense amount of internal and external public relations work and patience. A curbside recycling program, driven, via incentive motivation, by a "pre-paid" bag refuse collection program was devised to meet the City's objectives. Simply, we introduced a bins and bags program! Here's how it works: Residents purchase specially designated refuse bags and yard waste bags from local retail outlets (grocery, hardware, convenience stores). A set monthly (quarterly) fee is no longer charged by the municipality or the hauler. The "pre-paid" disposable bags to be used for the collection of garbage/refuse and the "prepaid" biodegradable paper bags to be used for the collection of yard waste are exclusively supplied by the hauler (bid specifications indicate the cost to be paid for each bag) to the selected retail outlets and have the cost to collect and dispose of the refuse or compost/land apply the yard waste included in the shelf price! The price for the service is determined through the bidding process or can be negotiated directly with a hauler. The price of the bag is the only charge a resident pays for the collection and disposal of refuse and or yardwaste! Each single family residential unit is provided a recycling bin by the municipality. (Recycling bins are state, and in some counties, grant fund eligible items.) Residents may discard in the bin specified recyclable items: for example, plastic milk jugs, aluminum cans, newspapers, tin cans, glass bottles and jugs. These items are collected by the hauler on the resident's regularly scheduled pick up day along with refuse and yard waste. Residents who use their recycling bin will pay less for refuse collection and disposal. Under this system, residents pay for the volume of refuse each throws away, those who put glass bottles and jars, newspapers, aluminum cans etc. in the recycling bin will pay less. The more one puts in the bin (at no cost), the fewer items one puts in bags; therefore, the less he will pay for disposal service! Unlike most conventional recycling programs in place today residents under this plan pay no additional fee to recycle. A specified amount, based on formula calculations, is incorporated in the refuse bag price to help offset the additional cost to recycle. (The revenue generated from the sale of the recyclables collected is kept by the hauler.) Yard waste (grass, leaves, brush) is picked up, as noted above, in specially designated biodegradable brown (extra strength) paper bags specifically manufactured for the purpose. Yard waste as of June 30, March 1990 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 19 1990, will no longer be accepted, comingled with other refuse, for landfilling (state law). It will have to be collected separately and either composted or disposed of via a proper land application process. The biodegradable paper bags were selected for three reasons for the St. Charles project. 1. The use of plastic or partially biodegradable plastic bags is not as acceptable as paper for a number of ecological reasons. 2. Plastic bags cause a problem for the hauler and or the compost/land application site operator as the material must be de-bagged either at the point of collection or at the compost/land application site before processing. Simply, we found biodegradable plastic bags did not break down the way we had hoped, left plastic debris blowing off the site etc., and caused clogging problems in the processing equipment. 3. The biodegradable paper bags were better for residents as they were rigid and held more material than a conventional 30 gallon plastic bag. Material did not have to be debagged at point of collection or at the processing site, therefore, (labor/time) costs were reduced. The end product, bags and material, after processing, can be directly applied to the land for accelerated breakdown. Finally, residents accept the fact a natural material breaks down and will not adversely affect the environment. We've found the program extremely adaptable and through practical operating experience have discovered ways to make it more cost effective and convenient for residents. It should be noted, a specific service plan can also be designed for multi-family residences (four or more units). Working out what to do with the collected yard waste is not insurmountable. Circumstances, location, etc. will dictate the most cost effective way to address the issue for each municipality or better yet a group of municipalities. Our directives, as noted earlier, were clear: develop a plan that will cost effectively help the City comply with state solid waste mandates; preserve existing landfill space by reducing the flow of solid waste to the landfill in order to buy the time needed for the county to site a new "environmentally safe" landfill site or develop acceptable disposal alternatives; and create an Page 20 / Illinois Municipal Review / March 1990 equitable program that will stabilize service delivery costs to residents. First quarter results indicate the system we designed has done the job! The "pre-paid" bag program provides the continual incentive needed to encourage recycling. Because it is a user pay service residents are made aware of the volume of garbage each generates, thus introducing the concept of source reduction into the home environment. Best of all, it affords the resident, "tax payer," contol. The program is equitable. If one generates a lot of refuse he is responsible for paying for its disposal, no one else is subsidizing his life style. If a family recycles, their cost for refuse disposal can be controlled and in many instances reduced! We estimate conservatively, approximately 30% of the residents (senior citizens, empty nesters, singles, families with two children or less) are paying less for refuse disposal in St. Charles today than they paid for the service prior to the implementation of the "Bins and Bag" program. And, since recycling is not mandatory it is not perceived as just another "government effort to force me to do something else I don't want to do." In reality all this program does is give each citizen the opportunity to do the environmentally prudent thing, and save a few bucks in the process. We'd welcome the opportunity to discuss with you how this concept or one similar can work for your municipality.
Solid Waste Environmental Technologies P.S. The St. Charles program after four months has diverted well over a million pounds of solid recyclable waste from the area landfill. Approximately 20% of the residential waste stream is being diverted in this metro-suburban municipality. The aforementioned does not include yard waste materials which make up an additional 15% to 20% of the solid waste traditionally earmarked for the landfill each year! •
March 1990 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 21 |
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