Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 12, 1990 TAG: 9003122915
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK LAYMAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Now the Board of Supervisors may impose the fee again to pay for a recycling program. Chairman Dick Robers and Supervisor Steve McGraw tried to do that last year but could not get a third vote.
But McGraw - hoping he can get newly elected Supervisor Lee Eddy to go along with the idea - may bring it up for a vote again at Tuesday's meeting.
Eddy said Friday he didn't know enough about the idea yet to have an opinion.
Robers said he would go along with it "if that's what the county has to do" to raise the money for a recycling program. "The sooner we get going on it, the more savings we're going to have and the longer our landfills will last."
A $5 monthly fee would raise an estimated $1.3 million per year.
Gardner Smith, the county's director of general services, said there are two ways to establish a countywide recycling program.
One would be to expand the existing pilot program, in which residents put newspaper, glass and aluminum in stackable bins. The bins are left on the curb along with household garbage on collection day.
About 2,000 households in Southwest Roanoke County, Fort Lewis and Cherokee Hills are participating in the program.
The other way would be to expand automated garbage collection countywide, giving residents one 60- or 90-gallon roll-out container for household garbage and a second for newspaper, glass and aluminum. The county would not sort the recyclables before selling them.
Garbage from 6,600 of the county's 24,000 households is picked up now by automated "one-armed bandit" trucks.
Smith estimated that a countywide recycling program would cost $700,000 to $900,000. But the expense will be necessary, he said, because of a new state law that requires localities to reduce the amount of garbage they dump in landfills by 25 percent by the end of 1995.
Since most of the costs of a recycling program would be one time only - for stackable bins, roll-out containers and automated trucks - it's possible the $5-per-month fee could be reduced after a few years, McGraw said.
The supervisors plan to hold a work session Tuesday to talk about recycling.
The regional landfill board has set aside $250,000 for Roanoke Valley localities to use for recycling programs. Based on the amount of garbage it dumps at the landfill each year, the county is eligible to receive $81,000 from the landfill board - if it comes up with $150,600 in matching money.
That money could be used to help pay for whatever option the supervisors choose.
by CNB