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Habitat and Recycling

Recycling manager help wanted

Help wanted: Someone to coordinate with residents and business owners to promote environmentally conscious program. Must love trash.

No, it's not a classified ad to replace Oscar the Grouch.

But if J. Michael Evans has his way, it could be the ad for a new position in Carroll County government, a cheerleader of sorts, to manage recycling programs and decrease the amount of trash that ends up in a landfill.

"On the residential side, I'm hoping the recycling manager will be able to enhance education efforts," said Evans, Carroll County's director of Public Works. "Not just in the school system, but through literature, through going to the garden clubs, and through public speaking events."

Evans presented his idea for a recycling manager to the Carroll Board of County Commissioners on February 14. He would like the position included in the fiscal 2009 budget, which takes effect July 1. Commissioners made no decision last week on the position.

Carroll County recycled 30 percent of its solid waste in fiscal 2006. down from a peak of 59 percent five years earlier. The state requires counties to recycle 20 percent of their trash.

Evans attributted the drop in the recycling rate to two major factors: Book publisher Random House diverted its discarded book program from Westminster to Indiana, and Carroll no longer takes it trash to an incinerator in York, PA. The ash was counted as recycled materials.

Curbside recycling has remained constant since 1999, he said.

One of the jobs for the manager would be to coordinate a pilot program in an asyet unspecified Eldersburg neighborhood. Residents would receive either a 60- or 90- gallon wheeled container for recyclables, to see if they would recycle more using the larger containers, he said.

Evans said he selected Eldersburg because the homes are closer together, which makes collection easier.

A newer neighborood would be selected, but the county's contractor, Recycle America, is not ready to announce which one, Evans said. The announcement is expected in about a month.

"There's some front-end work that needs to be done, like telling people that we're delivering these [containers]," Evans said.

The manager would also oversee a new recycling policy for Carroll County government, Evans said. It requires each employee and county agency to actively participate in recycling and to buy recycled products when practical and economical.

The measure outlines tasks employees must do, such as make double-sided copies, unsubscribe from unwanted mailing lists, and use email to send memos.

Evans also expects the manager to work with haulers to encourage them to bring recyclables to the county's recycling center. "I think the approach we have to take is showing them the economic advantage to having an aggressive recycling program and do everything we can to help them out," Evans said.

The manager would make calls to businesses to encourage them to recycle. "The most important thing in their life is not recycling; the most important thing in life is selling their product," he said. "We want to try to make it important to them and show the benefits of it."

The recycling manager would also do sample inventories of the Northern Landfill Swap Shop in Westminster. The shop is for items that can be reused, such as tools, furniture, toys, and knick-knacks; people can freely give or take items.

"We don't measure what goes in and out of it'" he said. "I think it would be worthwhile to know the number of visitors that we have each day in and out."

Commissioner Michael D. Zimmer (R) of Eldersburg read part of a letter to the audience from Marcia Weller, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Carroll County, citing the success of the swap shop.

Weller wrote that she and another Habitat worker found a bathroom mirror and vanity in their original boxes at the swap shop that they used for a Habitat home. "That is just terrific," Zimmer said.