Walton County Considering Recycling Program

Walton may try to boost recycling efforts
LAUREN SAGE REINLIE / Daily News
2012-05-18 16:01:49
Walton County once again is reviewing how to boost its meager recycling program. At a County Commission workshop Thursday, residents will have a chance to weigh in on what kind of recycling programs they’d like to see and how, if they’re willing, to pay for it. “We get a lot of requests, especially on the south end of the county, asking what we can do from an environmental standpoint to recycle more,” County Administrator Greg Kisela said Friday.

Walton County now recycles less than 2 or 3 percent of the waste produced, Kisela said.
“Percentage-wise we recycle a very limited part of our waste stream,” he said. “We could do much better.”

Janice Floyd, an engineer technician with the county, said recycling rates have been going down. “We like to promote recycling every chance we get because we’re getting kind of lax,” she said.

Under the county’s current program, people can bring recyclables to trailers located across the county. However, there is no curbside pickup. The county also uses a process known as “Dirty MRF,” named for the materials recovery facility where garbage is dropped off. There, garbage moves up a conveyor belt while prison laborers pick off recyclable materials that can be salvaged. “Unfortunately a lot gets contaminated,” Floyd said. The programs are paid for through a 1-cent local option sales tax that commissioners approved in the mid-1990s.

The sales tax option brings in about $12.8 million a year, Kisela said. Two-thirds of the money pays for the county’s solid waste needs: collection, disposal, landfill fees and recycling. The other third is used for debt service and capital projects such road resurfacing. Kisela said the key to implementing a better recycling program will be balancing the costs of collection with how much can be recouped from selling recyclables and avoiding landfill disposal fees. “We’re trying to figure out what level of service is going to give us the most bang for the buck,” he said.

The county has tried pilot programs in the past, including a “blue bag” initiative in which customers put their recyclables in a separate blue bag and placed them in their garbage cans. Unfortunately, many tourists weren’t aware of the program and ended up putting trash into the bags and contaminating the recyclables, Kisela said.