Charleston County Wants to Increase Recycling
By Ian Silver
Charleston County Council continues to weigh its options as it prepares to make a decision on whether to renew its contract for the trash incinerator in North Charleston.
County Councilwoman Colleen Condon says it has become obvious that Charleston County needs to increase its recycling efforts whether council decided to continue using the incinerator or to increase landfilling.
“Can we alleviate the need for an incinerator if we increase recycling,” Condon asked.
That’s the multi-million-dollar question on the minds of all the County Council members.
Currently, Charleston County recycles roughly 10 percent of all waste it collects. Condon says the County needs to quadruple that number for environmental and economic reasons.
“To me, it made it absolutely clear when you look at the prices we have to aim for 40 percent recycling.”
The Charleston County Recycling Plant in downtown Charleston on Romney Street processes about 10 tons of materials every hour, and about 100 tons every day. Condon wants to increase residential and commerical recycling so that the County would recycle at least 400 tons every day and, eventually, about 100-thousand tons every year.
“This facility is self-sufficient,” Condon said. “The cost of the materials that we sell actually pays for the building. But it doesn’t pay for the pickup.”
And pickup seems to be the biggest thing standing in the way of increased recycling.
Too much area, not enough trucks.
But Condon says increasing funding for more trucks and more pickup routes would be a worthwhile investment.
“Recycling a can is still cheaper than having to pay for landfilling of that can for the next… hundred years until it dissolves, or look at burning it and other options,” Condon said.
Even if increased spending is needed to increase recycling Condon says the savings of million per year would still greatly out-weigh the spending.
“When we add these kind of options in we could be saving millions of dollars a year if we could just be a little bit better about recycling what can be recycled.”
Condon also says it’s important for businesses to realize the value of recycling if the County is going to increase its effort overall.
A lot of business owners don’t know they could save significant amounts of money by recycling more.
The County charges for waste disposal based on the number of pounds of trash delivered to the incinerator or landfill.
But the County does not charges for pickup of recyclable materials.
So every pound of waste a business recycles is one pound of waste they are not having to pay for.
Some businesses save hundreds, even thousands every month by recycling.
People can also request free recycling bins for their homes by calling 720-7111.
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