Recycling at transfer stations - changes?

C

chaotic

This is your captain!
I went over to the Valley Lee transfer station last weekend with a bunch of cardboard, only to see they replaced the giant metal containers with oversized mailbox-shaped things. Much much smaller, so of course they were full. Did they do this at all of the transfer sites? I'm about to try again today, but am expecting the same situation.

They also shrunk the glass/paper/plastic containers as well, but at least they had more of these.
 
GoodnessME

GoodnessME

Active Member
chaotic said:
I went over to the Valley Lee transfer station last weekend with a bunch of cardboard, only to see they replaced the giant metal containers with oversized mailbox-shaped things. Much much smaller, so of course they were full. Did they do this at all of the transfer sites? I'm about to try again today, but am expecting the same situation.

They also shrunk the glass/paper/plastic containers as well, but at least they had more of these.
Click to expand...

They did the same thing at Clements. More but smaller. Had to look for the one for newspaper!!! WHY???? New contract??? Less for MORE $$$$???:whistle:
 
Highlander

Highlander

ONE NATION UNDER GOD
chaotic said:
I went over to the Valley Lee transfer station last weekend with a bunch of cardboard, only to see they replaced the giant metal containers with oversized mailbox-shaped things. Much much smaller, so of course they were full. Did they do this at all of the transfer sites? I'm about to try again today, but am expecting the same situation.

They also shrunk the glass/paper/plastic containers as well, but at least they had more of these.
Click to expand...

Southern MD is a wonderful place to live but when I moved here, I stopped recycling. Where I came from, we had curbside trash pickup. This included recycling and yard waste stuff. I hate the concept of putting my nasty trash in my car and hauling it somewhere. I decided to pay for trash pickup. With this...I gave up on recycling. All my plastics, glass, paper goes into the trash.

It's so much cheaper and easier to plop the trash (and recycle stuff) into one can and leaving it at the end of the driveway. It's a shame these counties don't really wanna do anything about recycling but as long as they are not willing to come into the 21st century, I don't plan to drive my crap miles down the road to get rid of it. Never done it before in my 40+ years, don't plan to start now.
 
R

RoadKill

New Member
Curbside collection in all areas of the county...

does not make financial sense. I researched this as part of a project for UMD, and it comes down to population density. Clearly, some areas of the county have the density for curbside recyc collection, but not all. At the time I did the study, which formed the basis of a recommendation to the BoCC to implement cardboard recycling at the transfer stations, the tipping fees were around $75 per ton I think. For a break even venture the amount of cardboard collected, adjusted for the recycler's transport fees, had to be less than that value. It was difficult to demonstrate break-even when people were hauling their cardboard to the transfer station at no cost to the county. Factor in curbside collection and it is a financial loser. Another issue is that the cardboard is a commodity and the price fluctuates.

Another observation is that you get what you pay for. Compared to other seaboard states that I have lived in , our property taxes are quite low here.

Finallly, I had curbside collection where I came from, but it didn't put me off to haul recyclables to the xfr stations. I liken it to a civic responsibility.
 
migtig

migtig

aka Mrs. Giant
RoadKill said:
I had curbside collection where I came from, but it didn't put me off to haul recyclables to the xfr stations. I liken it to a civic responsibility.
Click to expand...
:yeahthat: I average one bag of trash or less a week and twice the amount or more of recycle.

Our transfer station layout changed as well in Ridge. However, it appears to still be Waste Managment green, so I don't see how anybody can say it's a new bidder.

Also, I think the reason they changed the cardboard layout was to actually force people to break down their cardboard in order to fit it through the slot. Signs have always read - please breakdown your cardboard, but there have been plenty of times where people have just tossed their boxes in thinking I guess that the request didn't apply to them. Lazy people.
 
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