Plan to Institute Alternating Curbside Weekly Yard Waste Pick-up, With Single-stream Recycling in Unincorporated Chatham County

Objective: This document serves to provide Chatham County Government with a
solution to its current waste management problem—the lack of curbside recycling
available to its citizens.

At this point, it is recognized that there is no question of the benefits to recycling, including economic and social.

Summary

The Citizens for Chatham County Curbside Recycling have collected, in 4 months,
nearly 12,000 signatures in support of a single-stream curbside recycling program
county-wide. The vast majority of these signatures are from voters living in
unincorporated Chatham County. This is three-quarters of the signatures needed to put
the issue on a ballot. By as early as April 2010, the petition may be turned in for the
Constitutional process of a referendum.

Before the issue is put to a referendum, this group is providing Chatham County with a
simple and efficient plan to put this environmental best practice into policy. Instituting a
curbside program as outlined in this document, will enable Chatham County to truly
start on its path to being the “greenest in Georgia,” fulfill the will of its citizenry and
avoid a special election.

Background

Two years earlier, this same citizen group sponsored a similar petition in the City of
Savannah to great success. Over 11,000 City of Savannah residents signed the
petition, subsequently Savannah put comprehensive recycling into policy, offering
single-stream curbside recycling to all its citizens. That program has maintained an
overall participation rate of 50%-55%. To serve the area’s growing recycling market,
Pratt Recycling has opened a Material Processing Facility (MRF) that is capable of
serving the entire region, accepting single-stream recycling right here in Savannah.

The Plan

Currently, Chatham County provides weekly curbside pick-up for yard waste, and a
monthly curbside service for bulky items. Historically, this has been financed through
unincorporated property taxes. Recently, the County Commission moved the financing
of its waste services to a $43 fee, without crediting the comparable amount on property
taxes. In effect, Chatham County is charging its citizens twice for a service that is used,
on average, by 18.5% of county residents, according to a recently completed study.

Due to its low participation rate, and the high interest in curbside recycling, the Citizens
for Chatham County Curbside Recycling contend that the yard waste pick-up should be
a bi-monthly service, with curbside recycling offered the other two weeks of the month.
In a recent online poll, out of 102 county residents, 93% percent are in favor of this
plan.

Costs

Because Chatham County already owns and operates nine trash compactor trucks, and
has the staff in place for weekly pick-ups, the capital costs are relatively low compared
to most curbside programs. In addition, Pratt has reported to us that they will charge no
fee to accept the county’s recycling. In fact, because the recycling commodity’s market
is rebounding and other factors, it may be possible for the county to negotiate a per ton
value of their recyclables, either through the City of Savannah or Pratt.

The two initial costs would be retrofitting some of the trucks with hydraulic lifts and
purchasing the 96-gallon carts. Following is a brief breakdown and estimate of these
costs.

Hydraulic lifts

The County’s current trash trucks can be retrofitted with either a single-lift per truck, or a
double lift. The double-lift option would allow efficient pick-up on both sides of the street,
and for this reason it is the more favorable option. Lifts start at $1400, and the tap-in kit
is $1000 for a single, $1500 for a double system. It is possible to retrofit at least seven
of the trucks with double hydraulic lift systems for approximately $35,000.

This information was furnished by the company, Bayne Premium Lift Systems, that
supplies the lifts for trash trucks operated by the City of Savannah.

Recycling Carts

A Toter Inc. sales representative quoted a price 10/5/09 of between $45-$50 per 96-
gallon cart.

Conclusion

In an effort to increase efficiency of the curbside yard waste program and offer curbside
recycling to its citizen’s, Chatham County could, with one-time capital costs, provide
both services for the same operating costs.

This is only one plan of a number of possible scenarios. Other options include requiring
private waste haulers in the unincorporated county to offer recycling to its costumers.
According to Randy Hartman of the DCA, this is how Gwinnet County is solving their
recycling needs.