Part 2 Bath BOS January meeting- recycling

(musical intro)

Well, Bath County Supervisors weren’t exactly stomping and clapping along with that famous tune on Tuesday evening, but they did get an update on two new contracts for hauling and disposal of recyclables from county administrator, Ashton Harrison. The biggest news is that recycling is now single stream.  Signs at the sites will guide residents about the changes, but the gist of it is: put the real garbage in the compacting bins, and the recyclables in the other. The sorting will take place in Roanoke.  But pay attention, and don’t let that true garbage contaminate the recyclables. Mr. Harrison let the supervisors and public know how this critical service will work.

“We’ll have three main recycle locations which are the three main solid waste sites, which are West Warm Springs, Millboro Springs and Valley. Recycle containers will accept cardboard, mixed paper, aluminum, tin, type one and two plastics which is for the most part, most consumer plastics.  Now people with larger white goods and tires will still need to take those things to the transfer station.  We’d like to make one note on tires.  We want to encourage people who have really large tires; we’re glad they’re recycling them and not throwing them away in our open tops.”

For those getting rid of large tires, especially from tractors, please assist transfer station staff lifting them into the recycling trailers.

Republic is still the company hauling the containers from the sites around the county, and RDS, or Recycling Disposal Services is the company where the processing will take place in Roanoke  and keeps a trailer at the Bath transfer station for hauling the recyclables. 

Disposal costs for the county will be thirty dollars a ton. Because money saved is money earned, it is essential residents practice keeping trash out of recyclables. If plastics, papers etc., have trash mixed in with them RDS will be forced to dispose of them as solid waste, and will bill the county accordingly.  Mr. Harrison encouraged consumers to save on the front end of the process by taking advantage of single stream, while also making sure not to put anything other than materials listed at the sites into recycling.

“You’ll see in the contract there’s a complex formula on our rebates.   We get a portion when they sell the paper and the cardboard and the plastics.  We get a percent of that profit.  And we haven’t forgotten about glass.”

He explained there just isn’t enough demand in this region at the moment to be profitable.  So again, the local refresher on Recycling. It is no longer available in Williamsville, but Millboro Springs, Warm Springs, the site near the picnic shelter at VES, and by Valley Supermarket are all offering single stream. Larger items may be taken to the transfer station near Hot Springs. One hope is this may increase participation in recycling, and eventually reduce solid waste disposal expense.

Once again,  those materials which are considered recyclable, and can stay out of the true waste stream are mixed paper, cardboard, numbers one and two plastic, aluminum and tin.  Tires, large white goods, and larger metal can be taken tot he transfer station.  And lest anyone ever forget, there are two full steps to shrinking our waste even before recycling, there’s this little jingle,

“Reduce, reuse, recycle . . .”