Jackson County leaders have agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a long-standing feud over a terminated landfill agreement with Macon County.

However, paying the bill shouldn’t be a problem. Jackson taxpayers have saved more than $145,000 as a result of cheaper tipping fees since pulling out of the agreement. For the rest, they’ll be slapping down the plastic ... and the paper, and the cardboard, and the glass.

The settlement puts to rest pending litigation between the two counties. For more than a year the two counties argued over who owed who what for Jackson County’s move to pull out of the contract that allowed the counties joint use of the Macon County landfill and obligated Jackson to build a new landfill once Macon’s was full.

First, Macon County officials said Jackson County owed more than $480,000, for closure, post-closure and remediation costs, an amount calculated based on the county’s utilization of 17.2 percent of the working landfill cell. Then, Jackson County commissioners said, no, Macon County owed them $592,000.

Last week, however, both boards approved a settlement agreement. As part of the agreement, Macon County has agreed to sell a baler that was used at the landfill and deduct its sale price from the $250,000.

Since backing out of the Jackson-Macon agreement, Jackson has been shipping its trash to a large landfill in Homer, Ga. The Georgia landfill offers lower tipping fees than the Macon County landfill — approximately $21.15 per ton versus Macon’s $43. Consequently, Jackson County has saved $145,614 it would have otherwise spent on waste disposal. Meanwhile Macon County has seen its tipping fees increase from $43 to $48 at least in part a result of the termination of the agreement.

Jackson’s saved $145,614 will make up about half of the $250,000 cost of the settlement with Macon County. The remaining balance will be covered by $135,726 garnered from the county’s new recycling program.

In 2003, as part of the same move that terminated the Jackson-Macon landfill agreement, Jackson County officials terminated the recycling processing agreement with Webster Enterprises.

“In the previous arrangement we paid a company $110,000 to haul it off,” said Jackson County Manager Ken Westmoreland. “We got nothing in return once the commodities were resold.”

The county contracted with FCR, a recycling company owned by Casella Waste Systems Inc., and began hauling its recyclables to an FCR station in Greenville, S.C. This time, however, FCR paid the county market value for its goods.

Hauling costs approximately $300 a load, though the weight and volume of a load depends on its contents. Market value for daily recyclable refuse more than makes up for this cost.

“Right now all the products are at an all-time high,” Westmoreland said.

The high value is a result of simple economics — low supply, high demand. Although commodities values can change, Bill Leonides, a member of FCR’s business development staff, said the market value has been holding steady.

“It’s been going on too long to be called a fluke,” Leonides said.

One reason for the high payouts is that the technology of recycling has improved. The process is easier, less labor intensive and consequently the recyclers themselves can sell more of their product to manufacturers. Recycled consumer goods like clothing and containers once carried higher price tags. Now, consumers’ may not even know that what they’re buying had a previous life.

“There’s a lot of stuff that’s being produced that doesn’t get sold as recycled,” Leonides said.

Of the goods coming into FCR’s center — including those shipped from Jackson County — approximately 50 percent is newsprint. Two major companies purchase FCR’s recycled newsprint — US Green Fiber, a sister company to FCR which makes cellulose insulation for homes, and Bowater Newsprint, the second largest newsprint company in North America. The Smoky Mountain News is often printed on Bowater paper.

So for Jackson County residents, recycling is helping dig the county out of two holes. First, it lowers the amount of trash the county pays to haul to the Homer landfill. Second, it earns the county revenue.

“You recycle and we are paid cash for those products. You dump it in the landfill and we pay somebody to bury it,” Westmoreland said.

And if you count the settlement of the Macon County landfill agreement as part of the package, Jackson may have come up with a new saying — three birds, one milk jug.

However, Jackson may owe its other neighbor, Haywood County, a thank you, as many residents are making the trek to Jackson to dispose of their glass recyclables. Haywood does not recycle glass. The added recyclables add to the county’s revenue, but Leonides said that as long as residents are packing up the glass, they might as well take it all with them.

“If you’re going to take the glass, take them the good stuff too,” Leonides said, explaining that corrugated cardboard and plastic sell for more.

Leonides said his company has approached Haywood County officials about forming a working agreement, but were turned down.

Meanwhile FCR is pursuing a contract in Buncombe County. The county already recycles glass, but with both the City of Asheville and the county’s recycling agreements due up in the next year, FCR hopes to secure a contract and open a new transfer station. A new transfer station would give the company the ability to pick up recyclables, rather than have them hauled in.