"Wyrick said the Council had two options to consider and Councilmember Nancy Hoffmann said, “What if we just didn’t recycle. I know it is not desirable but some cities are doing it.”
Wyrick said that was not an option he had considered, and that since the city would have to dispose of the 25,000 tons of recyclables at the landfill at a cost of $45 a ton, it probably wasn’t a good financial move, yet."
So what did Wyrick suggest we do?
"Wyrick recommended negotiating with Republic and trying to find a way to ease into the new contract where instead of being paid for recycling, Greensboro is going to have to start paying. The City Council agreed that negotiating a contract extension was the better option.Doesn't seem like much of a long term solution, does it? Don't be angry with Mr Wyrick, the spending required for long term solutions are above what he's allowed to recommend.
Wyrick said the city would have to share in the cost of operating the MRF and he estimated the cost to be between $75 and $90 a ton. At $90 a ton the city would pay $2.25 million a year if the recycling stream is not reduced.
One suggestion for the future that Wyrick said should be considered was for the city to ask people not to put glass in the recycling bins. He said it would take a while to educate people and the city could provide recycling drop off points for glass, but that when the city is paying for the recycling operation, picking up glass, sorting it and then paying $22 a ton to have hauled off doesn’t make sense."
Amazingly there's a 3rd solution that Mr Wyrick isn't talking about, one that City Council knows but they're not talking about it either I'm speculating it could it be because they have already screwed up and spent $Millions upon $Millions of your tax dollars on a 'Regional Solution" that didn't take into account the up and down nature of the price of recyclables.
That's right, your money was spent to build a regional landfill in Asheboro when in-fact there was a better solution all along.
On Friday, March 9, 2012 I wrote Greensboro Garbage Comes Back In 15 Years. Only it came back in half the time predicted.
On Saturday, November 24, 2012 I wrote, Common Sense Solutions, in which I recommended building the new high tech, Claudette Burroughs-White Waste To Energy Plant owned not by 3rd party contractors but by the City of Greensboro.
"Then started hauling our garbage not 70 miles to Montgomery County where we pay $40 a ton in tipping fees but to our own W2E Plant just 10 miles away where the tipping fees are ZERO?
Let's see, we've just saved 60 miles at a cost of what $3 per mile and $40 a ton and 20 tons per trip, 6-8 trips per day... Someone do the math."
Did your City Council listen?
In my 2013 series Economic Development At The White Street Landfill I repeatedly pushed for modern, zero pollution waste to energy solutions as a means of economic development for a city in dire straits economically but did even one member of your city council step up and answer the call?
Here's one that will blow you away. On Wednesday, September 24, 2014 I wrote When I Suggested This For Greensboro They Told Me It Wouldn't Work. In it I wrote:
"I tried to get the City of Greensboro to install waste-2-energy plants at the White Street Landfill before it was closed. I suggested the City begin with a pilot program then scale up. I was told it wouldn't work.
I argued that W2E would solve Greensboro's long term waste problems, bring high tech, high paying jobs to East Greensboro and produce revenue for the City of Greensboro. Some called me crazy.
Now we learn that the entire nation of Sweden runs on W2E and is importing garbage from other countries while Greensboro continues to fall behind spending $Millions upon $Millions of Dollars a year hauling our garbage to a rapidly filling landfill in Montgomery County while searching for new landfill sites."
I even included this cool video:
We can profit from our garbage. And we don't have to stop recycling.
Oh, and that little problem with truck traffic on White Street? There's a new landfill entrance from East Cone Blvd already in operation. Think of all the high tech jobs we could be bringing to my neighborhood.
