ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 22, 1996 TAG: 9607220111
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTINA NUCKOLS STAFF WRITER
Over the past several years, recycling has become part of Patty Pope's routine.
Her family has a special trash can designated for recyclables. Her four daughters regularly pull out aluminum cans and take them to school for recycling drives.
Although curbside recycling in her North Lakes neighborhood doesn't include glass, she gathers bottles anyway and hauls them to a bin at her local Kroger grocery store.
It's hard for her to imagine losing the service she has come to rely on, but some county officials say that could happen, perhaps as early as next year.
"The question is: `Are we providing comparable services countywide?' And the answer is `No,''' said Vinton Supervisor Harry Nickens. "By July 1997, it either ought to be a countywide system or we ought to be out of the business."
It won't be easy to retreat.
"We're used to it," said King Harvey, president of the North Lakes Civic League. "I think I would miss it."
"I think we'd all miss it, and I think the end result would be maybe 50 percent would continue recycling," Pope said.
In fact, King and Pope said they and their neighbors would like to see recycling pickups doubled to twice monthly.
Roanoke County was the first county in Virginia to begin a recycling program, back in 1987. Although the pilot program has grown in the past nine years, it's still just that. Most county residents have yet to receive the service.
Right now, 3,700 households in the county have curbside recycling. Of those, 1,700 homes in Castle Rock and Fort Lewis require separation at home. The remaining 2,000 households in North Lakes, Willow Creek, Montgomery, Crofton and Lindenwood leave their paper, plastic and aluminum in a single bin for sorting at Cycle Systems.
"If they're going to do it, I think they should do it as a whole community," said Nan Culicerto of Boxley Hills, a neighborhood near North Lakes that lacks curbside service.
Supervisors Chairman Bob Johnson, who said he'll fight to keep the pilot program going until another solution is found, is hoping to elicit interest in a regional recycling program in the belief that it's the only way the county will ever be able to offer the service to all residents.
But with less than a year until Nickens' proposed deadline, it's unclear who would initiate a regional program.
Johnson recently sent a letter asking for cost estimates to the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority, which operates the landfill for Roanoke, Roanoke County and Vinton. Members of the authority's board responded that they would need a request from all jurisdictions before proceeding with such a study.
In the meantime, another study group formed in October by the city and county is looking into regional refuse collection and recycling, but has spent most of its time on the trash issue.
Bill Rand, Roanoke County's general services director and a member of both the authority and the city-county study group, said a regional system's collection could be handled by either the city or county, by the resource authority or by a private business.
The authority's charter prohibits it from collecting trash or recyclables, but board members in May voted to change that provision. Public hearings have not yet been scheduled on the change.
Recycling will remain a costly enterprise, even if it's expanded to cover the region, Rand warned. The county now spends $69,000 annually on its pilot program - up from $40,000 two years ago - and collects just $4,000 in revenues from the recyclables.
Rand estimates it would cost $280,000 to $300,000 to provide the service countywide.
Those estimates are subject to change because the value of recyclables fluctuates wildly in an unstable market, he added. The going price for newspaper, for example, has dropped from $30 to $5 a ton since November. Companies that were accepting plastic for free now charge the county 4 cents a pound to take it. That means the county is paying $80 to recycle a ton of plastic it can bury in the landfill for $50.
In most cases, it's still cheaper to recycle than bury, but pinning down exact figures will be difficult.
Rand said the average cost to the county per customer for recycling is $1.46 per month. So far, the service has been free to residents lucky enough to live in a neighborhood where it's provided.
Pope said she would prefer an option such as a regional system; but barring that, she would be willing to pay a reasonable fee - which she defined as no more than a couple of dollars a month - to keep her service.
"I think it should be a personal responsibility, and I think it should be part of the county's responsibility," she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. Kelsey Pope, 7, carries recyclables toby CNBher family's container
in North Lakes subdivision in Roanoke County. color.