Agency proposes updates and increased recycling

The plan addresses waste disposal and recycling over the next 17 years.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Mahoning County has adequate landfill capacity to meet its waste disposal needs at least until 2022, but it plans an aggressive recycling campaign that will conserve landfill space, according to the county's Green Team director.
That recycling effort is being bolstered by increased prices paid for recycled materials, notably metals and plastics, spurred by demand from foreign markets, said Jim Petuch, director of the Green Team, otherwise known as the Mahoning County Solid Waste Management District.
"Five years ago, markets for commodities were flat," he said. As for plastics in 2001, he said: "You couldn't give them away. Now, five years later, oil is at an all-time high." Oil byproducts are a main component of plastics, he noted. "China wants them. They're wanted all over. Plastics are at an all-time high," he said of today's market conditions. In the past five years, scrap metal prices have doubled, he added.
"Recycling is now a business where you can make money," Petuch observed, adding that two private companies now plan to build materials recovery facilities in Mahoning County to sort and bundle recyclables. "Never in my 24 years have I ever seen markets at this level," said Petuch, who has worked in litter control and recycling since 1982.
State-mandated plan update
Petuch made his remarks as a public comment period opens Monday on a state-mandated Mahoning County solid waste management plan update, which covers the next 17 years. The comment period ends Aug. 11.
A public hearing will be at 9 a.m. Aug. 14, in Room 201 of the county's South Side Annex, 2801 Market St. The plan, first developed in 1993, is updated about every five years, Petuch said.
After the hearing, the plan and any revisions to it must be approved by the county's Green team policy committee, the county's townships and municipalities, the county commissioners and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
The plan's goals are to assure that the county has at least 15 years of waste disposal capacity, provide cost-effective and practical strategies for reducing reliance on landfills, and improve public safety and health. "We are ensuring the most essential and appropriate solid waste management methods that will be used," Petuch said.
The plan calls for increasing residential and commercial recycling from the present 14 percent to the state goal of 25 percent of the waste stream and industrial recycling from 39 percent to the state goal of 66 percent of the waste stream by 2010, Petuch said. The industrial category includes scrap metal, gravel and fly ash.
Strategies
Besides using curbside collection of recyclables and drop-off recycling centers, strategies for achieving these goals will include countywide composting of yard waste to keep it out of landfills and a new materials exchange program that promotes reuse of old appliances, Petuch said.
Implementation of the plan will be paid for from the $3 million in tipping fees the county receives annually for garbage dumped in its landfills, including trash originating locally and out of state.
Copies of the 300-page plan's final draft are available for review at Green Team offices, at Youngstown State University's recycling department in Smith Hall, at the main public library on Wick Avenue and at library branches in Sebring, Milton Township and Greenford.
The plan, which also may be reviewed electronically at www.greenteam.cc, calls for development of "practical and results-oriented waste reduction, reuse and recovery systems as alternatives to landfill disposal."
Among the subjects addressed by the plan are inventories of solid waste management facilities and open dumps, population and waste generation projections, and source reduction and recycling strategies.
The plan also includes a list of landfills in other counties that could be alternative dumping sites in the event that a landfill in Mahoning County is forced to close.