[greenyes] Re: greenyes Banning OCC from landfills

["Blair Pollock" <bpollock@no.address>]

Hello: The landfill in Orange County NC banned non-residential corrugated cardboard in 1995 with a four month grace period that ended in March 1996. After that point, the landfill began levying penalties equal 2x the tipping fee for loads containing more than "an armload" of OCC. Landfill space savings was the primary motivator. We calculated almost a year of space savings would result from banning OCC for the ten year projected life of the LF (it's now gone out to 12 years from our orignial projected closure date) 

Most businesses & apt. complexes opted for private dumpster service for OCC at that time (and when OCC prices were high, you should have seen the OCC theft!)  The program has been largely successful. From our waste sorts, OCC was 20% by weight of non-res. waste in 1990, then down to 10% in 1995 (we had voluntary free public collection of business OCC)  but by the year of the 2000 (after the ban took affect) the waste sort showed it was less than 4%. 

The three Towns which collected all the urban commercial waste at that time, then banned OCC from the dumpsters they serviced and had to provide 'recycling police' to ensure no OCC in dumpsters, if the recycling police ( not a new position but part of san. supervisor's job) found/saw OCC in dumpster they cited the business and didn't collect and left an 'oops' tag.  

There was some initial resistance to the ban from the business community. Now compliance is high generally, except for when students move back into apts. in the fall. Then it's bad. It's generally worse at apts than businesses. 

Some small businesses use public recycling dropoff sites if they have <50 boxes/week. Others use a private service that hand-collects OCC from a pile and then takes to dropoff sites. But most complied by getting special slotted OCC dumpster. There are also oppties to dropoff OCC at no charge at landfill to avoid penalties.

We had one interesting wrinkle where mostly construction contractors would load rolloff box w/ OCC at end of job and pay the double fee penalty, since it was just lightweight OCC it was cheaper than renting a separate dumpster throughout course of the job. We then attached a $400 surcharge to loads greater than 50% OCC, stopped that problem.  Ongoing enforcement is necessary. 

Residential is not covered and in communities where they have res. OCC w/ curbside recycling & the boxes have to be cut down to size, very few participate. It's about 5% by weight of our res. MSW and would really overburden our recycling drop off sites (where we now collect OCC three times/week) so we didn't ban res. OCC along w/ the non-res OCC.

Passed an ordinance to make it happen, then all  three towns also passed ordinances
landfill cardboard   Re: [greenyes] Help!
	709 by: bet danse <betdanse@no.address>




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Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 07:05:03 -0600
To: greenyes@no.address 
From: Michael & Susan Kramer <mkramer@no.address>
Subject: Help!
Message-ID: <3F154D7F.487DBA6C@no.address>

Dear List,
I would like to have some input from those of you who live in areas
where recyclables are banned from the landfill.  I am preparing a
document to present to my county commissioners to ban cardboard from the
lanfill.  Also, if anything is banned, the reasons used to ban, such as
space availability?
This would really help.
Thanks so much
Susan Kramer
mkramer@no.address 

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Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 10:31:24 -0700 (PDT)
To: Michael & Susan Kramer <mkramer@no.address>, greenyes@no.address 
From: bet danse <betdanse@no.address>
Subject: landfill cardboard   Re: [greenyes] Help!
Message-ID: <20030716173124.78530.qmail@no.address>

Good luck ! Let me know how you make out if you
go forward with this venture.

We have a landfill here, too, that buries
residential cardboard--reason being, contamination.
This county collects 85% of the cardboard, which Waste
Management says is darn good, most of it of course
from businesses and government buildings.

Residential cardboard is not collected here on
recycling day.  They have found that people throw
everything except the kitchen sink in with recycables
anyway, so the contamination issue is huge.

Suggestion, rather than go through all the trouble of
banning cardboard from the landfill, start up
cardboard dropoffs for the moving companies.  I've 
been told by several of them here that if we put 
flattened, clean cardboard out in covered containers
in various dropoff locations, the moving companies
"would flock to them."

Another suggestion: Have recycling containers and
reuse areas close to the entrance of the landfill so
people can dropoff their recyclables before dumping
them.... 

Bette