THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 23, 1996 TAG: 9605230350
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 75 lines
Curbside recycling will cost 50 cents per month for households in seven communities starting in fall, the Southeastern Public Service Authority decided Wednesday.
The 5-2 vote reversed an April decision by SPSA to impose a $1 fee for the service, a move that prompted Virginia Beach to abandon curbside pickups in favor of an expanded program of its own.
Customers in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Franklin, Suffolk, Isle of Wight, Chesapeake and Southampton County will begin paying in September for the authority's blue bin curbside program.
SPSA will bill participating cities, not homeowners. Three cities - Franklin, Norfolk and Portsmouth - will put the fees on their residents' water bills. The remaining municipalities will absorb the cost through their general funds.
In addition to the curbside fee, SPSA's board also raised from $45 a ton to $48.50 the ``tipping fee,'' the amount it charges cities to use the regional landfill.
Neither decision will affect Virginia Beach because its tipping fees are capped, under previous agreements, and because the Beach has decided to drop the curbside program.
Clarence Cuffee of Chesapeake and Michael Johnson of Southampton County voted against the price changes Wednesday. Norwood Boyd of Franklin, Malcom Cofer of Isle of Wight, Conoly Phillips of Norfolk, C.W. ``Luke'' McCoy of Portsmouth and Thomas Hines of Suffolk supported the measure.
No voting member from Virginia Beach was present, although two city staff members attended.
In January, SPSA began considering a 50-cent fee for its curbside service and an increased tipping fee to $48.20. Then in March, SPSA was asked to determine what impact raising the curb fee to $1 would have on the tipping fees. The answer was it would drop to $45.
In its April meeting, the SPSA board voted 4-3 to approve the $1 fee with a $45 charge - a move that prompted Virginia Beach to complain about the curbside program's inefficiencies.
SPSA Executive Director Durwood S. Curling has been exasperated over the Beach's claim.
There are only three ways to collect recyclables, he said. The first is to sort it at the curb, with the trucks having separate compartments for plastics, glass, metals and paper.
``In this way, you get the highest quality of recyclables because everything is recycled,'' he said.
SPSA has been criticized for not taking all grades of plastic containers, but Curling said most of them, like plastic olive oil jugs, contain a vinyl chloride liner, which is considered a contaminate by recyclers of plastic. Even if they are picked up, they are often discarded in the landfill.
The second way, which is how SPSA currently operates, is to sort at the curb newspapers and all containers with the final separation occurring at a materials recovery center.
The third method is what the Beach plans: dumping everything into one bin and sorting it later.
The problem with that method, Curling said, is the high rejection rate. ``They'll admit to 25 percent rejects, material that just ends up in the landfill. But I think the number is higher. It looks to me like 30 or 40 percent.
``It's a very efficient collection, but the efficiency deteriorates when you get to the materials recovery center.'' by CNB