Newspaper Page Text
ACC Moves Closer to
Long-term Recycling
and Septic Goals
Athens-Clarke County can, and will by
2020, recycle up to 75 percent of trash that's
now going to the dump, if strategies adopted
by ACC commissioners this month are suc
cessful. Recycling will remain voluntary for
citizens, but "single-stream" recycling (which
doesn't require sorting paper from plastic) will
make it easier,
"Some people see separation of recyclables
as difficult or tedious," says ACC Recycling
Coordinator Suki Janssen. "It's going to take
funding, and it's going to take behavior
change," but 75 percent trash diversion is
an attainable goal, she believes. The big
gest chunk of that will come from recycling
organic materials like food waste, which isn't
presently being recycled—and that's also the
biggest "if" in reaching the goal, Janssen
says, because picking up food waste could be
expensive. Hospitals and restaurants (as well
as homeowners) usually throw food scraps in
the trash; but if they separated it—either for
on-site composting or for pickup—it could
be turned into rich soil for gardening or land
scaping. "If you have space for a compost bin,
honestly, you should be doing it yourself," she
says.
UGA has a pilot program to compost food
waste from East Village Commons (and even
generate biogas from it). The program is suc
cessful, according to Kevin Kirsche of UGA's
Office of Sustainability, and will expand to
other UGA dining halls. Other than that,
Janssen says, "we don't have any large-scale
composting going on in our community."
Janssen doesn't foresee forcing people
to recycle (and ACC commissioners already
rejected a plan to set rates and designate
zones for private haulers), but the commis
sion-approved strategies include requiring
businesses, industries and apartment com
plexes to at least provide recycling bins. Also,
a one-stop collection center for hard-to-recy-
cle materials was approved as an upcoming
SPLOST project.
And an effort by commissioners to head off
leaking septic tanks (which sometimes pollute
streams) may begin by trying to compile info
on the locations of the 6000-plus septic tanks
in the county. "It's something that we've
never had the ability to closely monitor, just
because of our records," ACC Planning Director
Brad Griffin told the commission's Legislative
Review Committee last week. Mostly, it's the
state health department's local branch that
regulates septic tanks (used by homes that
aren't on county sewage lines) and keeps
the only records on them; perhaps the local
government could offer to put those records
into electronic form, benefiting both agencies,
Griffin suggested.
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Commissioners have discussed requir
ing periodic maintenance or inspections of
the tanks, but proposed no specifics. Septic
tanks and their drainfields can be damaged by
excessive water leaks, by parking or growing
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trees over the drainfield, and by flushing inap
propriate materials into the system, according
to Georgia's Department of Community Health.
John Huie
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