rss
mobile
Feeds
Exactly how recycling will happen -- and when it will take place -- is still to be determined, said John Safay, chairman of the Town of Hilton Head Island's public facilities committee at that group's meeting Thursday.
Four options remain and could be used individually or as a combination of programs, Safay said.
Here are the options:
• Push to increase voluntary recycling and use town money to promote participation.
• Develop a full-scale, town-administered mandatory program. The town would select a designated hauler to pick up recycling. The estimated cost of $40 to $60 a year would be included in residents' property tax bills.
• Develop a mandatory recycling program, but allow residents to select their own waste hauler.
• Adopt a "pay as you throw" program. The program is a drastically different kind of trash collection system because it treats it like any other utility, such as electric or gas, where people pay based on the amount of the service they use.
Residents would get special trash bags through a grocery store and would pay per bag for trash.
Recycling pick-up would be free.
In a straw poll of Thursday's nearly 20 meeting attendees, including waste hauling companies and the general public, "pay as you throw" gathered the most votes, followed by a town-administered program.
The "pay as you throw" idea was a late addition to the list. Safay said he hadn't known about it until about a week before the meeting.
Mark Dancy, president of Hemingway, S.C.-based Phoenix Recycling, which administers "pay as you throw" programs, said his programs result in some 40 percent of all trash, by absolute tonnage, being recycled. The state average is around 6 percent, he said.
Such a program would be tough to manage in areas where people throw into a communal trash Dumpster.
It also would be tricky to implement in rental villas where tourists often fail to take out their garbage, said Rob Moore, an official with Property
Administrators, a property administration company on the island.
Still, he liked the approach.
"The concept makes so much sense it's painful," Moore said.
Safay said there will be further meetings between town staff and waste haulers to come up with more concrete proposals before the next public meeting. Another public meeting will occur in the next few months, he said. No specific date was set.
Whatever recycling program is adopted might take as long as a year and a half to implement, Safay said.
