WHY ARE WE THROWING AWAY MONEY IN OUR LANDFILL? PART 5

The last 4 articles in this series have highlighted the fact that even though Rome and Floyd County offer numerous recycling programs, we are still finding that over 30,000 tons of recyclables are being buried in Walker Mountain Landfill each year. That is over 60,000,000 pounds per year. We also saw that all those tons represented over $ 2,000,000 in potential revenues to our recycling program. It is important to realize that these amazing numbers are from just our one community and that this dilemma is faced by other communities all over the State of Georgia as well as the entire nation. Georgia’s Department of Community Affairs, through its waste characterization study and numerous other dealings with communities throughout the State, has helped put real numbers on the magnitude of the problem with some of their findings. “Hundred’s of thousands of tons of recyclable material that could have been raw material for Georgia’s mills are getting buried every year in the state’s landfills. By weight, more than a quarter of the waste entering the state’s municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills consists of recyclable paper products. Based on 2004 disposal data, that comes to 1.9 million tons of paper products.”

Joe Dunlop, Program Coordinator with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs states that “there are 15 paper mills in Georgia that rely on recycling collection programs to generate the fiber they need for operations”. Most people don’t realize the tremendous positive economic impact that these paper mills have on our overall economy. They employ over 25,000 workers with an annual payroll of $ 1billion. In their “Recycling Economics 101 Part II”, DCA illustrates that by just focusing on the paper waste disposed in landfills from the residential sector, 70% of these paper products can be readily recycled in Georgia mills. With today’s surging fuel costs, shipping distances make a big difference on the bottom line and it makes good business sense to work with local markets whenever possible. However, the mills have a much higher demand for feed stock than our community recycling programs are delivering and have to go outside the state, incurring higher costs, to meet their needs. By finding ways to capture all those tons that are currently being buried in our landfills we could make a difference in this picture. Once again, my hope is that all this information will give us a new perspective on our recycling efforts in Rome and Floyd County and encourage more people to participate in one of our many recycling programs. Stay tuned - more to come next month.