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Nathaniel Townley, Commodity
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SAVING MONEY AND LANDFILL SPACE
Nathaniel Townley, Commodity
Coordinator for Fauquier County tells his audience how his locality
operates its recycling program which generates some $7 million in
annual revenues and conserves landfill space. Fauquier County
diverted some 12,000 tons of recyclable materials from its landfill
in 2006, achieving a 25 percent recycling rate for the year. And the
county also collected seven million dollars in revenue from the
recycled materials. “Recycling is the process of turning waste materials
into new usable products,” said Nathaniel Townley, Commodity
Coordinator for Fauquier County. His county recycles a long list of
materials, including flourescent light bulbs, oils and the more
traditional newspaper, aluminum cans, plastics, etc. His advice to
County officials was “to
start small and continue to grow.” The need to recycle and to start
a more comprehensive program in Halifax County, which only recycled
about 15 percent of its waste material last year, was the topic of a
day long program on Thursday. Held at Riverstone Park Building One,
and sponsored by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality,
the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service and the Halifax County
Improvement Council, the meeting
attracted a large audience, many from adjoining communities.
And while as Townley pointed out, the cost of recycling may be
higher
than the revenue it brings in, the big benefit to the taxpayers is
the
savings in landfill space that is realized through the diversion of
the
recyclable material. Townley said that with the 25 percent
recyclable
rate of his county, they save one year of landfill space for each
four
years of recycling. If they can up their percentage of recycling to
30
percent they will save one year of landfill space for each three
years
they recycle. Jenny Hochstein, chairman of the Halifax County
Improvement Council said her groups vision for this community is
simply to continue the
recycling effort which has been underway for a number of years,
accepting newspapers, cardboard, mixed paper, #1 and #2 plastics,
aluminum and metal cans. She also hopes to expand that list to
include
other recyclable materials such as glass. “Now, more than ever, we
must recognize recycling as a resource to save the environment and
taxpayer money,” she urges. ‘This (recycling) will help to keep tax
increases at a minimum for trash disposal, “ Hochstein points out.
In the meantime, County residents and businesses will need a place
to take their yard waste, tires, white goods and metal — things that
now go to the landfill.
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