Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Did you know that both Hannaford and Price Chopper have to, by law, collect and recycle certain types of thin film consumer items right in their stores? Neither did I, until I started working with a new County task force.

I am a member of the 3R Task Force (reduce, reuse, recycle), a subcommittee of the Solid Waste/Environmental Concerns Committee. Actually, it's a task force I recommended we form, in order to reduce the solid waste sent to the landfill from Otsego County. Ed Lentz (D-New Lisbon) chairs it, and we met again last night in Hartwick.

There's a lot to learn in this arena. First of all, landfills: not infinite. It is essentially impossible to get a permit for a new major landfill in New York State, and, as they fill up, they close. This is another one of those lurking environmental disasters about which we're not quite clear right now, but which could provide a nasty and expensive surprise to our children or grandchildren.

Ironically, it's not in the solid waste industry's financial interest to reduce the tonnage that ends up in the landfill. They are paid by the ton, and reducing tonnage reduces revenue. That's true for the County, as well, as a result of our transfer station agreement with Cassella, but the County is not (at least from my viewpoint) in the business of making money from solid waste.

However, reducing tonnage is in everyone's interest, not only because we're running out of places to put it. A lot of the trash that ends up in landfills doesn't stay there, and does damage elsewhere – for instance, microbeads, the extremely tiny plastic beads found in many personal care products that find their way through septic filters and water treatmentplants, polluting waterways and concentrating in marine life, whichmistake them for food. Some states and counties have outlawed the sale of products containing microbeads, and some home care corporations have pledged to take them out of their products. Should we do this in Otsego County? More to come.

There's a company in western New York State that disassembles mattresses and recycles the components, where possible. If you think of the truckloads of mattresses that are thrown out just by the colleges and hotels in Otsego County each year, these mattresses are a significant addition to our landfills. There's a catch, of course – this company charges to take away the mattresses. Should we set up a tractor-trailer at the transfer station to store the mattresses? Charge the consumer? Pay for it from the County budget? Require Scholet and the other furniture stores to charge a fee for every mattress sold? We are making plans to pilot something like this next year.

Lots more. Fabrics are recyclable, but we don't generate enough volume out here in the country to justify the recyclers to add us to their route. Dunkin' Donuts still uses expanded polystyrene (styrofoam) cups for medium and large coffees. How do we get them to move to more recyclable products? How about an Otsego Green program, where retail businesses can earn a green certification that they 'display proudly'? We've all seen the mile or two sections of highway that are 'adopted' by an organization for litter pickup. How do we offer a mile or more of the Susquehanna riverbank for the same service?

As is often the case, more questions than answers. But we're working on answering the questions that come up, one by one. Any ideas?