Greeneville, Greene County and Tusculum together spent $5,918,374 last year on solid-waste removal.

This was noted in a draft version of the 2000 report on solid waste that was approved Monday by the Greeneville-Greene County Solid Waste Advisory Board.

Greeneville Alderman Sarah Webster, chairman of the board, said, “People need to be made aware of what it is costing us.”
She added that this money is coming from the municipal and county budgets, “so in essence, we each, as citizens, are paying for our solid waste disposal efforts” through property taxes.

The report is somewhat uncertain about the cost of handling a ton of waste, because there was a question about exactly how many tons had been put into the landfill during 2000. The report was to be corrected before being filed with the state.

Webster said the city and county need an accurate cost-per-ton figure to use as a starting point “if we ever have to charge people individually.”

The board also reviewed a draft of the required five-year report on its 10-year solid waste plan.

Both reports were presented by Chris Craig, of the First Tennessee Development District, at a special meeting called for that purpose.

Webster said the annual report has to be filed with the state by March 31.

Craig reported that 34,511 tons of solid waste were transported to the BFI Industries Carters Valley landfill in Hawkins County, and 1,619 tons were transported to the Iris Glen landfill operated by Johnson City. He said most of the garbage taken to Iris Glen was moved by private haulers, while most of the waste taken to Carters Valley was hauled by Greeneville and Greene County vehicles.

Uncertainty On Figures

Craig said that the apparent total of 36,130 tons is “down around 10,000 tons from last year.”

For his report, he said, he was dependent on figures prepared by the two landfills.

He said the apparent significant decrease in the waste stream “raised an eyebrow,” and he plans to get back to BFI and ask its personnel to recheck. He said that, because it took a month and a half to get the first figure, he did not think he would be able to have it in time for the called meeting, but would try to have it before filing the report with the state.

Zip Wright, who manages the Greeneville-Greene County transfer station, said the number did not look right to him, either. “That’s a little low,” he said.

Wright said he had just done some calculations to find out average tonnage handled at the landfill and had found the average over the same time frame to be 3,514 tons per month. (Multiplying that average by 12 months comes out to 42,168 tons that moved through the transfer station in a year.)

Craig said that he is afraid that if the total is reported to the state using the figures he has now, “it could be detrimental to you” in future discussions with the state, because future requirements are based on a county’s or municipality’s history.

Webster said that, since there is no proportional increase in recycling to account for the reported decrease in waste being landfilled, “the figures don’t work together.”

Craig said that the total for recycling comes to 22,203 tons, which he said is “a couple of hundred tons less than last year.”

Webster noted that the amount of waste being reported as placed in a landfill is “down a couple of thousand tons.”

In recent years, the state government has required that municipalities reduce the amount of waste being put in landfills by 25 percent, using 1995 as a base year. Recycling, composting and diversion to demolition landfills is the main method for achieving this reduction.

Craig said that Webster had received a letter stating that Greeneville, Greene County and Tusculum had reduced their total waste stream in 1999 by 40 percent.

In the future, the law may change, Craig said.

He said he does not believe that the state will penalize a municipality that does not meet its waste reduction goal as long as a good effort is being made, as evidenced by there being adequate numbers of people employed in solid waste work and that they are given an adequate budget.

Webster said she was concerned because, last year, Jonesborough received credit for recycling materials that were actually collected here. Tusculum Mayor Robert K. Bird noted that Tusculum College has recycling bins for aluminum cans and newspapers that go to Jonesborough.

Right now, Webster said, the Jonesborough numbers are not critical to Greeneville and Greene County’s meeting reduction requirements, but at some point they might be.

Craig also pointed out that Greeneville and Greene County need to know their actual solid waste totals for planning purposes.

Webster asked Craig whether Greeneville and Greene County might get some help from the state in obtaining numbers on quanitities of materials from Greene County accepted for recycling at Jonesborough.

He said that is possible, and noted that Jonesborough obtained a large grant from the state to set up a regional recycling facility. “They may be required to keep those figures,” he added.

Craig noted that the incidents of illegal dumping reported in the past year were down, with 41 incidences reported, compared to 51 a year earlier.

One section of the plan asked the Solid waste Advisory Board if it envisions additional staffing needed to handle some aspect of solid waste.

There was brief mention of the need for more environemental education. Tusculum’s Mayor Bird noted that the Middle Nolichucky Watershed Alliance has taken on some aspects of environmental education, and Keep Greene Clean is working with the Alliance on this front.

Craig said that the state is starting programs to provide some funding for educating adults.

Webster said she can see a time ahead when the city and county governments may need a solid waste coordinator who would be knowledgeable about the economics of recycling, adept at scheduling, and able to study conditions and negotiate or “broker” the best terms, to make solid waste operate on a businesslike basis.

The board also reviewed the five-year report. He noted that the report asks for the top five contributors to the county’s solid waste stream, and said this “may be a list you don’t want to make [or don’t want to be on],” because typically the list is made up of large companies.

He said the list is: Plus Mark, Greene Valley Developmental Center, the Wal-Mart Regional Distribution Center, Five Rivers Industrial Complex, and Tennessee Aluminum Casting.

He said he estimates that these industries, together, produce about 1,100 tons of solid waste per year, which he said is about 3 percent of the county’s total.

He said this estimate is not based on actual weighing, but on what is typical in other regions.

Craig said the numbers are “strictly my guess, sitting in my office.”

Changes Planned At Landfill

Unrelated to the reports, Wright told the board that Vaughn & Melton is doing engineering work needed for a permit modification needed to move the grinder at the county’s landfill to another location there. The grinder is used to chop up trees and tree limbs.

Another reason for the permit modification is the need to build a larger storage area for trees and limbs.

“We intend to contract the grinding to an outside firm,” Wright said. He said the grinder has been “down for three weeks.” The grinder has required considerable maintenance in the past year, as reported earlier.

Expensive and frequent maintenance caused Wright to recommend earlier this year that the city and county contract with a company that will do the job for a lower overall cost.