Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 5, 1991                   TAG: 9102050422
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARK LAYMAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COUNTY TO TRY UNUSUAL RECYCLING PLAN

Later this week, the county will distribute 60-gallon, rollout garbage containers to 900 households in North Lakes. Residents will be asked to dump their household recyclables - including newspapers, junk mail, magazines, computer paper, cardboard, aluminum cans, plastic soda bottles and milk jugs - into the containers.

On the first Tuesday of each month, beginning March 5, the recyclables will be picked up by one of the county's "one-armed bandit" automated garbage trucks.

Residents are being asked to crush aluminum cans, milk jugs and plastic soda bottles before putting them in the containers. Glass bottles should not be put in the containers, because they might break. The county is looking at other ways to collect glass to recycle.

Roanoke County is "definitely the first in the state, and maybe the first on the East Coast," to try automated pickup of commingled recyclables, project specialist Donna Ayers said. "The only other place we know that has it is Phoenix."

The recyclables will be taken to Cycle Systems, where they will be separated and sold.

Cycle Systems is charging the county $10 per ton to separate the recyclables. Still, that is cheaper than the $19 per ton the county pays to dump garbage at the regional landfill in Mount Pleasant - and the $55 per ton that it is expected to cost at the new landfill at Smith Gap.

Another 800 households in the Montgomery Village and Crofton subdivisions east of Vinton will get 60-gallon containers later this month.

If it's successful, there are plans to expand the project countywide.

The county now has a "source-separation" recycling program involving 1,950 households in Southwest Roanoke County and in the Cherokee Hills and Andrew Lewis Place subdivisions west of Salem. Those residents put glass, aluminum and paper in separate, stackable bins. The bins can be left on the curbside with the household garbage on pickup day each week.

Nancy Bailey, the county's solid-waste coordinator, said commingled recycling projects usually are more successful than source-separation projects because they are less of a hassle for residents.

"We feel like this is the simplest way to do it," she said.

And, because the recyclables will be picked up monthly instead of weekly, collection costs will be reduced.

Each 60-gallon container costs about $60. The county is spending about $100,000 on containers for the first phase of the project.

Under state law, each locality must reduce the amount of garbage it buries in landfills by 25 percent by 1995. If done countywide, the commingled recycling project would reduce the amount of residential garbage going to the landfill by one-fifth, Bailey said. However, most of the garbage that goes to the landfill each day comes from businesses and industries, not residences.

Meanwhile, the county continues to expand automated garbage collection. By this spring, half the households in the county will have 90-gallon rollout containers that are picked up by "one-armed bandits."