AGENDA #5g
MEMORANDUM
TO: Mayor and Town Council
FROM: W. Calvin Horton, Town Manager
SUBJECT: Commercial Waste Reduction – Pilot Program
DATE: August 26, 2002
This report provides information on the previously proposed pilot program for reduction of commercial waste. Action on the proposal was deferred based on a lack of support for key elements of the possible pilot program from the Orange County Solid Waste Advisory Board and a lack of funding available from the County for possible expansions of commercial recycling programs that would have been needed to support the pilot program.
BACKGROUND
During work sessions related to the budget for fiscal year 2001-2002, the Council appointed a task force that included Council Members Joyce Brown, Lee Pavăo and Jim Ward with a charge to develop a pilot program that would reduce the amount of waste produced in the commercial sector of the Town. The task force drafted such a plan and forwarded it to the Orange County Solid Waste Advisory Board (SWAB) for review and comment. Key elements of the proposal included:
· Restaurant recycling – the plan envisioned up to 6 restaurants that would be targeted to recycle food waste, glass and cans.
· Multi-family recycling – the plan intended to add at least one apartment complex to enhance their collection of materials already recycled and to possibly add mixed paper collection.
· Other commercial site – the plan included adding a building or complex that would target office paper and possibly mixed paper.
DISCUSSION
Mayor Waldorf contacted the Town’s SWAB representatives to ask that they convey the Town’s plan to the County Commissioners and ask for funding support for the program. There were costs associated with the components of the pilot program and some reluctance on the part of the County staff to support the various additions (please see the attached County staff report). The SWAB eventually noted support for some of the program and not others (see the attached memorandum) and concluded that a successful pilot could generate “pressure” on the existing commercial recycling collection programs for which there was not adequate funding.
We are reporting this due to the possibility that the memorandum from the SWAB to Mayor Waldorf has not already been communicated to the Council. We believe that the subject has been mooted by the budgetary pressures for both the Town and the County in the past and current year.
ATTACHMENTS
2. Memorandum dated November 19, 2001, from Gayle Wilson to Solid Waste Advisory Board (p. 6).