Easier to go green in Lexington
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| Click the image to watch a video report about curbside recycling. (HELEN COUPE/ Rockbridge Report) |
Lexington residents no longer have to cart their recyclable materials to the county recycling center. As of this week, they can simply place recyclables at curbside.
All city residents received a letter from Public Works Director David Woody this month detailing the program, as well as two clear plastic bags and a refrigerator magnet.
Mixed paper, cans, glass bottles and cardboard must be in clear plastic bags. Paper products must be recycled in a separate plastic bag. Full bags can be placed by the regular garbage and will be picked up on residents’ second garbage pickup day.
“This program will ultimately save the city money in both the short run…and the long run,” Woody wrote in his letter to residents. Curbside recycling should reduce the amount of trash the city will send to the Rockbridge County landfill.
Fees to dump waste at the landfill continue to increase. Since July the city has paid $29 per ton to dump trash at the landfill. The fees are projected to be more than $60 per ton after the existing landfill closes in 2012.
Plans for Lexington’s curbside recycling program have been underway for about two years, said John Smith, service, facilities and equipment superintendent for Lexington Public Works.
“We had started with the businesses as kind of a pilot program to see how it would work,” said Smith.
Since May, 75 percent of Lexington businesses, including restaurants like Blue Sky Bakery and The Palms, have participated in a curbside recycling program with an enthusiastic response.
Residential curbside recycling was originally set to begin in July.
But that same month the city was involved in litigation with Buena Vista-based Hamilton Contracting’s APT Services, one of the partner recycling companies. Those suits, about liability and insurance, were resolved Oct. 16.
According to Smith, the recycling program will cost the city practically nothing. APT Services and Auto Recyclers, another Buena Vista-based recycling company, will not charge the city for recycling. APT will provide containers for the recyclables and sort the contents. Fuel costs and the salary of an employee to drive the truck are the city’s only expenses.
“A tremendous amount of residents are already recycling and taking it to the recycling center,” said Smith. “This makes it real simple for anybody.”
Lexington residents are enthusiastic about the new program.
“We have been doing it all along. We have bins in the back of the house,” said Susan Thompson. She and her husband used to sort their recyclables and deposit them at the recycling center behind Peebles department store in the College Square shopping center along Route 11.
The College Square center, which opened in 1991, and other recycling centers are operated by Rockbridge County. Buena Vista already has a successful curbside recycling program that works alongside scheduled garbage pickup.
Thompson is concerned about how much the bags can hold and their durability when full of glass bottles. Also, once residents use the bags, they will have to buy new ones, which could be an inconvenience.
Still, Smith predicts success for the new curbside program.
“We have great expectations,” said Smith. “We’d like to have 50 percent of our people recycling.”
Thompson is excited to be among them.
“It’s going to be a learning experience, but I’m so pro-recycling I’m happy to do it,” she said. “It’s just a matter of changing our habits.”
Produced by
Washington and Lee
journalism students.
Lead Supervisors:
Prof. Brian
Richardson
Prof. Indira Somani
Editing supervisor:
Prof. Pamela Luecke
Reporting Supervisors:
Prof. Doug Cumming
Prof. Indira Somani
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd