Educate residents about ease of recycling

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Merrimack residents now have two new choices to make: Re-think the importance of and embrace the new ease of recycling in town, or consider the possibility of “pay-as-you-throw,” which, in effect, is merely a new tax burden for all of us who generate trash.

Back in 1991 when the transfer station was built and put into operation, Merrimack paved the way for the diversion of countless tons of material which heretofore wound up in the landfill – since filled to capacity, closed and capped.

The recyclable materials which have been collected at the transfer station over these past 18 years or so have found their way to new, second lives as everything from carpeting and soda bottles to new cars and who knows what else. Unfortunately, since recycling was optional, and not a requirement – and because recycling required separate containers, sharp eyes to distinguish a number 2 from a number 3 on the bottom of a plastic bottle and some additional time at the transfer station to deposit the recyclables into their respective compartments, many residents, not willing to take the time and effort to separate and recycle, or unaware of the overall benefits of doing so, continued on mixing potentially valuable recyclable materials in with their trash.

When the landfill was closed, everything that was thrown in the transfer station “pit” was hauled away out of town, to someone else’s backyard, to be buried and remain in silent repose until the end of time.

There were costs in this process – which have been borne by the residents and taxpayers of Merrimack; first, there is the opportunity cost of not having these materials diverted out of the waste stream and sold to re-processors who could turn this “junk” into valuable raw materials. The second cost is in the removal, transportation and tipping fees the town must pay to have the trash deposited into the out-of-town landfill.

This is how the town still gets rid of the non-recyclable trash – and does so by the ton. But the volume of this trash is staggering and analysis has shown that many, many residents are still not recycling, but rather blindly throwing away everything together, trash and recyclables, into the pit at the transfer station to be hauled out of town and buried.

So what has the town come up with to encourage more recycling and to cut down our costs in handling trash? Single stream recycling – a not-so-new idea (it has been used in my former town of Hempstead, N.Y., for almost 20 years now) wherein all recyclable materials may be tossed into the same compartment; all of these comingled materials will then be hauled to a processing plant specifically designed to mechanically separate the mixed materials so they may be sold (the town gets part of the profit) and re-processed.

Hard to believe? Let me repeat: all you need is a single container, into which you may deposit all numbered types of plastic, tin cans, aluminum cans, glass containers, most types of paper, including newspaper, magazines and junk mail, cardboard, hard and soft-covered books and egg cartons (the town Web site has a link to the complete list of recyclable and nonrecyclable items). This one container can then be taken to the recycling center and dumped overboard – done, finished and out of your garage!

How much easier could this be? And what about the notion of pay as you throw wherein residents would have to purchase special bags from local retail outlets, place their household trash in them, and then take them to the transfer station?

This idea, which was thought to encourage recycling by burdening those with larger amounts of trash, including recyclable materials not being recycled by their generators, was floated earlier this year by our town manager, but ultimately rejected by the Town Council. Recently, it has reared its ugly head yet again, as a possible revenue enhancer because of the need for further cuts to the town’s operating budget.

I say this: Let’s get the residents of Merrimack fully-informed about the ease and need to recycle as much material as possible and to divert as much as possible out of the final waste stream. We will save money in not having to dispose of as much, and we will make some money by selling our recyclables to the processing plant. The alternative to this initiative is more trash winding up in a landfill somewhere (at a cost), and the possibility of us being taxed by the necessity of having to buy special bags to pay-as-you-throw.

Let’s hope the town – and our school system – continues to educate our residents who may be more ecologically resistant, but who might have to eventually pay the piper – along with the rest of us – if pay-as-you-throw becomes a reality.