Jackson County is seeking refuge from the rising cost of disposing of solid waste.

Commissioners invited GDS Inc. to its Feb. 1 meeting to try to get a handle on its solid waste program. GDS contracts with the county to manage its Staffed Recycling Centers (SRC).

Jackson County shares a landfill with Macon County and pays a $50 per ton tipping fee for the refuse GDS hauls to Macon. The county also pays the tipping fee of licensed private haulers who transport residential garbage to the Macon County landfill.

County residents pay an annual fee and pay no tipping fee at the SRCs. Private haulers who handle residential garbage do not pay tipping fees at the SRCs.

Commissioners realize they could have a problem with unethical haulers, who could avoid the tipping fee by taking their trash to an SRC.

Board Chairman Jay Denton said he was sure that most private haulers were doing the right thing but that some weren’t. He said the county needs standardized regulations that will put all haulers on equal footing.

Jeanne McElroy and Scott Welch of GDS were present to discuss some of the problems they’ve encountered at the SRCs. They said it was evident by the amount of garbage that it all couldn’t have been generated from households. They also said they invariably found commercial and/or construction debris mixed in with the garbage at the SRCs.

Commissioner Franz Whitmire noted that the lack of recycling was also a problem. McElroy agreed, but she told commissioners that she gets phone calls from angry residents if her staff at the SRCs suggest recycling. She said residents tell her they will not recycle unless it is mandated. McElroy said recycling would probably reduce the tonnage that GDS hauls to Macon County by one-half.

Welch told commissioners that GDS had been collecting data at the SRCs for the last year. He said that in January they recorded 864 instances of commercial private haulers at SRCs in the county. Using a simplistic scenario of one ton of garbage per trip and the $50 per ton tipping fee, Welch calculated that Jackson County would pay approximately $43,000 per month in tipping fees.

McElroy said that she has been tracking the flow of garbage at the county SRCs for nearly two years and it has simply gotten out of hand. She said there is not enough recycling and too much commercial garbage coming into the centers.

County attorney Raymond Large suggested that the board review the policy of the solid waste advisory committee. If we have an ordinance, someone will have to enforce it, he said.
Denton concurred.

“We need to work on this with the solid waste advisory committee. It’s costing us money every month,” he said.

Bill Buscemi, who owns Helping Hands Service Co., is one of the licensed haulers in Jackson County. He will be on the agenda at Jackson County’s next commissioners’ meeting Feb. 15.

 

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