Recycling plan makes progress
The Canton Repository
BOLIVAR - The local waste district is on the verge of approving a long-delayed recycling plan that would reward communities that recycle more and penalize communities that recycle less.
Under the plan, the Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne Joint Solid Waste Management District would continue to fund local recycling programs at current levels, plus inflation, for two years, said Andrew Booker, a supervisor for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, which negotiated the plan with the district.
Starting in 2009, the district’s counties, cities, townships and villages would get recycling grants of up to $45 per ton of materials recycled. Communities would get up to $25 a ton for composted materials.
Booker believes the new grants system, modeled after Hamilton County’s, would give towns more incentive to encourage their residents to recycle — or risk losing funding.
It would replace the current system in which last year, Jackson Township got $40,000 in district recycling grants and recycled more than 1,900 tons of waste, while Canton got more than $56,000 and recycled 169 tons. Other types of grants would be available, and an administrator would be hired to make sure the money is spent properly.
CURBSIDE IN CANTON
The EPA official said a key is the establishment of a curbside recycling program in 2007 in Canton, the district’s largest city. The district would give the city $700,000 to set up its program, which would be voluntary for residents. Municipal sanitation workers would pick up recyclable materials such as paper, plastics, cans, cardboard and glass placed by residents in a container by the curb, said Booker, who added that many details have to be ironed out.
Booker said he’ll be attending a Canton City Council meeting Monday to discuss the new program.
Also, the number of Stark County sheriff’s deputies paid by district grants to oversee inmates collecting litter, to search for improperly tarped or overloaded garbage trucks and to catch illegal dumpers would drop from five to three. Booker, who first proposed reducing it to one, said spending more money on recycling is a higher priority.
The district’s board is set to vote Dec. 21 on the plan, which has been delayed by disputes since 1999. The EPA took control of draft planning in 2004 due to the impasse, but the district can regain control in about three years if it submits a new approved recycling plan, Booker said.
“It was a long, tough, hard journey, but I think we’re at a place where it’s a plan we can work with,” said Stark County Commissioner Gayle Jackson, who wasn’t happy about losing the deputies. “We fought hard to keep them, but that was the best we could do.”
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