Island holds first meeting on future of recycling

Recommendations for bringing expanded recycling collection to Hilton Head Island were as varied and colorful as a bin full of mixed aluminum and plastics.

Those suggestions came Wednesday during a town meeting at Town Hall and was the first in a series of planned meetings on the topic.

The town's Public Facilities Committee held a workshop to discuss how the island should proceed in an increasingly "green" age.

Residents, trash haulers and town officials came up with a number of ideas on the future of recycling pick-up. Wednesday's meeting, produced no formal action.

"I don't want to confine us to a timeline," said committee chairman and Hilton Head Town Council member John Safay. "Anything new is going to take some time. Today's goal was to start a dialogue."

Several people at the meeting, including Mayor Tom Peeples and Waste Pro official Art Smith, said the way to make recycling work is to make it mandatory.

Smith said recycling is a costly business given the shifting market demands for recycled materials like plastics, glass and cardboard. Moreover, operating a truck is expensive when only a limited number of residents participate.

"We have to decide if Hilton Head has the backbone to recycle or not," he said. "It's all or none."

While many attendees agreed the town should have a mandatory policy, a clear conclusion on how to implement one wasn't reached.

Several residents suggested using clear trash bags and issuing fines to those who throw away recyclables with regular trash.

A Sea Pines resident who lived in Switzerland suggested a recycling method enacted while he was a resident there: requiring residents to use small, expensive town-issued trash bags.

After the policy went into effect, "they started recycling everything," he said.

One recycling roadblock is that the island has many part-time residents and vacationers, who may not see recycling as a priority, said Waste Management manager Howard Fister.

"Yes, they're used to doing it in the North, but on vacation, it's not necessarily the first thing they'll talk about," he said.

To deal with vacationers, one resident suggested rental owners be held responsible for making sure renters comply with recycling guidelines.

Another idea that gained traction was an enhanced voluntary system, like the one in place in Hilton Head Plantation where residents have several trash pickup options -- varying in services and price range -- to choose from.

The issue of recycling pickup in the island's gated communities is complicated by "backdoor policies" that prohibit curbside collection for aesthetic reasons.

Safay said the committee will likely hold another recycling meeting in about a month.