Thursday, June 08, 2006

The business of municipal government can get a little dirty sometimes. Just ask the two dozen or so Cranberry employees who spent a recent day digging through more than 7,000 pounds of trash.

They were trying to discern the particulars of people's recycling habits: Was regular garbage being mixed with recyclables? What varieties of recyclables were being placed at the curb? What recyclable was collected in the greatest quantity?

Lorin Meeder, who oversees Cranberry's recycling effort, called it a day of "treasure hunting," saying that a lot of valuable information was learned.

"We have a real sense now of how things are going, and the evidence is clear that the program is a success,'' he said.

The results of the township's Municipal Recycling Composition Study showed that most people are recycling and most of what is being put in the recyclable containers is what should be put in there.

The day began with the collection of curbside recyclables at 405 homes, but instead of trucking the refuse to Vogel Disposal Service's recycling center in Adams, the stuff was dumped onto the floor of the township's Route 19 public works building. Township employees who had volunteered for the dirty deed rolled up their sleeves and began sifting through 7,240 pounds of junk.

Recycling consultant Michele Nestor, of Valencia, said that only five bags of "intentional garbage" was found mixed in with the recyclables. Other items were found in the recyclables that didn't belong there, but Ms. Nestor believes they were honest mistakes: plastic toys, hoses, electrical extension cords. In all, of everything collected that day, about 8 percent of what was discarded as recyclables were items that couldn't be recycled.

That number is below the 15 percent expectation set by the state Department of Environmental Protection, Mr. Meeder said.

The most popular item being recycled is paper at about 65 percent, followed by glass at about 12 percent, plastic at about 11 percent, aluminum at 2 percent and bimetal at 1 percent.

Within the category of paper, newspapers were by far the highest percentage at 2,226 pounds. That was followed by mixed paper, such as junk mail, at 1,272 pounds; cardboard at 802 pounds; and paperboard, such as cereal boxes, at 416 pounds.

Based on those statistics and others, Mr. Meeder has concluded that 2,650 tons of recyclables were collected in Cranberry last year, the first full year since the township began using one company to collect refuse, which tied the price for collecting garbage to the amount that's set at the curb. Before that, the township had provided recycling containers for many years, but collection was biweekly and the containers were small. Also, fewer items were considered recyclable.

Cranberry also began accepting yard waste as part of the new system, collecting 1,960 tons last year, Mr. Meeder said. Yard waste is recycled as compost.

This year, the township hopes to establish a recycling system for townhouse neighborhoods and apartment complexes. Cranberry Manager Jerry Andree said the township was working to set up a large bin for cardboard collection at the Rochester Road municipal center in response to people who have said the recycling containers aren't big enough to hold their cardboard refuse.

Cranberry has received a $157,000 grant from the DEP for enhancement of the Cranberry CollectionConnection refuse program. Mr. Andree said most of the money would be used to buy recycling totes for those who live in multifamily housing.