Huge recycling jump likely in Saratoga County waste plan

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

A new draft county solid waste management plan — the same document that has county officials considering selling the county landfill — would require residents to recycle more.

Officials estimate county residents and businesses now recycle about 15 percent of their trash, but current state guidelines call for significantly increasing that total.

“[The state Department of Environmental Conservation] in 10 years wants a diversion rate of 75 percent to 90 percent, which is pretty aggressive,” said Luann Meyer, an engineer with Barton & Loguidice of Albany, which is developing the county’s plan.

The draft plan suggests the county can realistically achieve a 25 percent recycling rate, and that’s what will be in the initial draft plan being sent to DEC officials for comment. Their review is expected to take several months.

The county Public Works Committee on Tuesday agreed to submit the draft for DEC review and at the same time release it for public comment.

Barton & Loguidice was hired by the county in July to develop a draft plan, which would be the first update to the county’s solid waste management plan in 20 years.

The county is expected to have to comply with the state’s 2010 “Beyond Waste” plan, which calls for more waste reduction and reuse of materials, composting of food waste and other measures DEC says will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce pollution and save energy.

Currently, other than operating five recycling centers, the county isn’t involved in the waste-handling business. Its landfill in Northumberland has never opened, and private commercial haulers handle nearly all residential waste, disposing of it at landfills and other facilities outside the county. Private haulers have taken over most of the residential recycling business, as well.

Barton & Loguidice estimates about 315,000 tons of municipal refuse is generated in the county each year, of which about 50,000 tons is recycled or diverted from the waste stream. Currently, recycling efforts focus on newspapers and magazines, metal, plastics and glass bottles.

The draft plan proposes more recycling be done at public buildings, development of yard-waste composting facilities, supporting electronic waste and household hazardous waste recycling programs and launching various public education measures.

County Public Works Commissioner Joseph C. Ritchey said he was reasonably comfortable with the draft.

“You’re not committing to doing these things, you’re committing to do an analysis,” Ritchey said. “I think it’s a logical approach, though some of it worries me, how we would implement it.”

Much of the plan will be devoted to determining the future of the landfill, which sits on 130 acres in a rural corner of Northumberland.

Supervisors are starting a separate discussion of whether the landfill — built more than a decade ago at a cost of $10 million, and never used — should be opened by the county or sold or leased to a private waste disposal company.