Georgia County Government - March 2008 - (Page 25)

public education. The Act set a goal of reducing the amount of municipal solid waste entering landfills by 25 percent by 1996 over 1992 levels, a very aggressive and, as it turns out, unattainable goal. Measurement was to be made by using scales at landfills, something that most landfills did not have at the time. In recognition of the different recycling opportunities available to local governments across the state, recycling was not mandated but s t r on g l y e nc ou r a ge d . L o c a l governments were to adopt strategies to reduce waste quantities requiring disposal. The Act established state and local/regional solid waste planning requirements and called for the creation of t he Georg ia Rec ycli ng Ma rket Development Counci l to exa mine the state of markets for recyclable materials in Georgia. It put in place requirements for waste management systems to be operated in a more business-like manner by requiring full cost accounting by local governments regarding solid waste activities so they would know how much it cost to manage solid waste. It required that this information be made available to the public annually. Consequently, the Comprehensive Act was designed to address the information gaps and to move the state forward in effectively reducing and managing solid waste. Georgia has strong markets for recovered materials, perhaps only second among states to California. not be made up from selling recovered materials, depending on what the market situation is at the time. The value of recovered materials fluctuates and, while sometimes recycling may generate more revenue than it costs, at other times it will not. In recent years, as foreign markets for recyclables grew and as the cost of energy and fuel increased, the value of recyclables has increased and become more stable. The first step in implementing the new law was to develop the Georgia Solid Waste Management Plan. 2 A work team composed of state agency personnel, local officials and interest groups was created and the plan was written and adopted by EPD and DCA. The state plan was updated in 1997 and again in 2006. Based on the guidance in the state plans, local governments, individually or by regions, developed and updated their municipal solid waste management plans. Once the plans were adopted and approved by DCA, major decisions relating to solid waste management had to be consistent with the plan. Since local governments were faced with a variety of new requirements, technica l and f inancia l assistance were important. A joint ACCG/GMA task force worked t hroughout t he development of the Comprehensive Act and its early implementation to ensure loca l governments understood the new solid waste-related requirements and that state agencies were aware of local government concerns. State agencies provided technical assistance to local governments on solid waste pla nning, reduct ion a nd d isposa l requirements and options. Grants were made available through the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority (GEFA) to assist local governments w it h s ol id w a s t e re du c t ion a nd management infrastructure. Implementation of the Act resulted in numerous changes in how MSW was managed in Georgia. Locally conducted waste characterization studies helped determine the materials in the waste stream and suggested more targeted options for managing some types of materials, such as yard trimmings, construction and demolition, and inert waste. Yard trimmings (i.e., limbs and leaves) are not hazardous and, in fact, can be converted to mulch and compost and put to beneficial use. Disposing of yard trimmings, at least in more urban areas, generally occurred in landfills. Doing so takes up increasingly valuable landfill space that could better be used for materials needing to be landfilled. In 1992, legislation was passed by the General Assembly banning disposal of yard trimmings in landfills with liners and leachate collections systems after Sept. 1, 1996. One of the more significant changes resulting from the 1990 Comprehensive Act was that many local governments decided to close their landfills rather than to upgrade them to meet the new Subtitle D standards. In 1994, 115 local governments reported that they owned their own landfill. By 2003, only 43 were still in the business. 3 The number of privately owned landfills in the state increased to 16 in 2004 and, although the number of private landfills is limited, their size is generally much greater than the publicly owned ones and account for most of the disposal capacity in the state. About 75 percent of the waste disposed in the state is handled by these privately owned landfills. 4 As the number of landfills decreased, the number of transfer stations increased. The trend, therefore, has been to replace small, countyoperated sanitary landfills with larger, privately owned and operated regional MSW landfills, with transfer stations used to load waste into larger trucks or rail cars to transport it the greater distance to a regional facility. Although considerable effort was focused on waste reduction, the goal of reducing waste entering landfills by 25 SOLID WASTE continued on page 26 MARCH 2008 www.accg.org Implementing the Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Act By increasing the focus on waste reduction, solid waste management became more complex. If the approach is to simply collect and dispose of solid waste, planning is only needed to ensure adequate disposal capacity exists, given the typical length of time it takes to site and permit a new landfill. But, if the focus is on reducing the amount of waste generated, increasing recycling and composting, and operating the solid waste management program in a business-like manner, more extensive planning is essential. Reducing waste disposal lowers revenue generated by tipping fees at publicly owned and operated landfills, which generally supports other solid waste management efforts. These revenues may or may 25 http://www.accg.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Georgia County Government - March 2008

Georgia County Government - March 2008 Contents President's Message County Matters Guest Editorial: Our Future Depends On Statesmanship Bryan County in Step With State Coastal Plan Solid Waste Management in Georgia Hazardous Waste Management in Georgia Extension News: Georgians Growing Older, Fatter County Parade Index of Advertisers

Georgia County Government - March 2008

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