Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 10, 1993 TAG: 9308250317
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAT THERRIEN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Indeed, newspaper headlines suggest that local communities may soon have to sacrifice funding for schools and human services to comply with new landfill regulations.
The environmental concern behind most of these regulations is long past due. Thirty years ago, localities used open dumps, which were set on fire regularly to reduce their size. Awareness of the disease potentials and odor problems created by open dumps helped inspire creation of the unlined sanitary landfill. The population continued to grow, and with it the waste generated per capita.
Many of the waste products created by our society combine in unanticipated ways and form ``leachate,'' an occasionally toxic ``landfill tea.'' Mercury from disposable batteries and fluorescent light bulbs, lead and sulfuric acid from automotive batteries, the dregs of various alkaline household cleaning products, leftover solvents and paints, and industrial and agricultural waste chemicals have been disposed of for years in unlined pits situated above our groundwater supply.| The current ``state of the art'' for municipal solid waste landfills is a composite liner with leachate collection systems, groundwater monitoring wells and new closure requirements. This is to better ensure that what we dispose of in our landfills stays where we put it.
Unfortunately, this new technique does not support a thorough, controlled breakdown of the organic matter that constitutes most of what enters our landfills. If the proper conditions for biological activity are maintained, the volume of waste in the landfill cell can be significantly reduced and the cell can be ``topped off'' a couple of times, greatly increasing its capacity.
Siting fewer landfills and building them to modern specifications has the potential to dramatically reduce the threat to our groundwater. This is good news, but it comes at a cost.
For rural counties, that cost can be quantified as follows: design, engineering and permitting fees - $500,000 to $1.8 million per site, depending on population and waste stream; construction - $500,000 per acre; annual leachate collection and treatment - $20,000 to $100,000 depending on size; closure costs - $90,000 per acre; annual groundwater monitoring - $20,000 to $100,000 (and that's only if you don't find anything).
Additional costs include the expense of gas monitoring and providing 30 years financial asssurance (an approved guarantee that the funds will be available for cleanup by an outside company, if necessary). These all add up to price waste-management facilities out of the reach of many individual localities.
Faced with these daunting costs, localities have a choice between building their own solid-waste management facility, contracting with a private waste-management facility, or joining or forming a regional waste-management authority, with very few working examples to base their decisions on.
Not surprisingly, the sharply increased cost of waste disposal is also providing the impetus for programs to reduce waste at the source and to reuse and to recycle materials.
Recycling programs aren't cheap, either. Finding makets that will pay for your materials is a challenge to almost anyone working with a recycling program. Rural areas must deal with additional challenges not faced by urban areas: low population densities scattered over large areas, rugged terrain, small tax bases and, in many cases, significantly longer distances to markets.
However, given the rapidly escalating costs of solid-waste disposal, rural areas must develop creative recycling strategies. The good news is that it is possible to develop regional recycling potentials of existing industry and new, small-scale facilities.
Alternative local uses, such as shredded newspaper for animal bedding; wood waste processing for mulch; controlled, mixed organic composting, and crushed glass as an aggregate substitute can significantly reduce the waste stream and the cost of recycling. This is more sustainable than paying someone else, somewhere else, to utilize low-value or negative-value materials for you.
Moreover, local recycling provides employment, increases the local tax base and helps maintain the quality of rural life.
No one solution is going to work for all rural localities as they try to meet the new federal and state solid waste management regulations. Geography, demographics and available options will determine individual strategies. But innovative and flexible recycling programs will clearly play a key role.
\ Pat Therrien is marketing manager for the Appalachian Regional Recycling Consortium, based in Radford.
by CNB