SALISBURY — Despite meeting the state’s current mandate for recycling, Wicomico officials this week questioned whether the county could be doing more to increase its percentages.
The debate arose during the Wicomico Council’s approval of the county’s 10-year Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan on Tuesday. While Wicomico is currently meeting the state’s mandated 20-percent quota for recycling solid waste, Councilman John B. Hall questioned why the county’s recycling percentage appeared to be stagnant in recent years.
“Around 30 percent of our recyclables are being done in the county, but we’re not seeing any increase,” said Hall on Tuesday. “It seems like it has been at 30 percent for the last five years.”
Wicomico Public Works Director Weston Young said the current requirement is 20 percent, but agreed it has been difficult to move beyond the county’s 30-35 percent recycling rate for a variety of reasons.
“There are several limitations there,” he said. “The citizens are dropping off their recyclables at one of 11 drop-off centers and there currently isn’t any curbside pickup. There are also limitations on what there is a market for.”
Young explained the county drop-off sites take in all manner of plastics, some glass, metals and cardboard and paper. However, Wicomico’s overall percentage is based largely on what it can resell into the recycling market.
“The percentages are based on tons,” he said. “We can collect all of the plastics we want, but we won’t move that number. If we took in more glass, we could greatly increase that number, but there is no market for glass. It’s complicated.”
Young explained the recycling market is fickle and the value of collected recyclables is somewhat of a moving target. The county is currently collecting a lot of plastic, but not always the types of plastics that are most in demand.
“If a market opened up for a different kind of plastic, we could collect that,” he said. “The same goes for certain types of metals and we’re doing what we can with electronics. We’re always looking at other ways to improve that number. We’re limited because we don’t do curbside pickup and it is driven by citizen drop-offs, but they’re not required to do so.”
While relying on citizens to haul their recyclables to one of 11 drop-off sites around the county, Young said the best way to improve Wicomico’s percentages is continued education and outreach.
“We just have to keep getting the word out,” he said. “We’re doing outreach to the schools from elementary to the colleges and express the benefits and how it helps the county and the environment. It’s hard sometimes to find incentives to do it, but we preach if you recycle, the landfill will last longer and there is an economic benefit for the county.”
In terms of extending the life of the county’s landfill system, Hall said the comprehensive solid waste management plan in front of the council set the life expectancy for the Newland Park landfill at 23 years.
“Twenty-three years sounds long, but it’s not really that long in terms of the life of a landfill,” he said. “I’d like to see some initiatives on extending that life and see it soon.”
Young agreed 23 years was not a long time for the life of a landfill and said his department is always looking at ways of extending that.
“Disposal of solid waste is tricky,” he said. “Incineration is an alternative, but there are air quality issues and nobody wants that in their backyard. We’re also looking at partnering with neighboring counties that might have more landfill space then they need. You’re right though, it’s not a long time at all.”
Councilman Joe Holloway raised some concerns about the disposal of the county’s septic waste, much of which is hauled to a disposal plant in neighboring Somerset County.
“What would we do if they suddenly stopped accepting it?” he said. “It’s a little concerning. We would get calls from those guys out there that have nowhere to go.”
Despite the concerns, Wicomico is currently surpassing the state’s mandated 20-percent for recycling and is consistently in the 30-35 percent range.
“It’s pretty good and everybody should be commended, but there is always room for improvement,” said Councilman Larry Dodd. “I’d like to see more outreach and education to see if we can get that number up a little.”
Young agreed, but explained the estimated 35-percent is pretty impressive considering it is all citizen-driven. He said all things considered, Wicomico is doing better than many of its neighbors on the shore.
“Wicomico is generally higher than other rural counties,” he said. “The larger counties have more sophisticated systems including curbside pickup in many urban and suburban areas. We’re probably in the middle in terms of the whole state, but we’re doing better than many of our surrounding counties.”