Town eyes waste disposal options

Town staff presented a video, ‘‘From Curb to Landfill: The Cost Of Waste,” at Monday’s Mayor and Town Council meeting to outline possible alternatives for dealing with the town’s trash.

The video, filmed by Sykesville intern Brad Dyjak, stresses the economic and environmental impact of throwing away too much trash, gives examples of items people may not know are recyclable, and points out that it was important to financially connect consumers to their choices to reduce trash.

The video shows viewers the process of trash sorting at the Carroll County’s Northern Landfill, and discusses the possibility of a waste-to-energy incinerator as a solution to the county’s trash problems.

But Ron Esworthy, Sykesville’s Public Works director, said the main goal of the video, which was produced by the town, is to increase recycling.

‘‘We’re trying to [educate] people about recycling,” he said.

The Town of Sykesville’s Public Works department collects the town’s trash, and as gas prices increase, so do tipping fees at Carroll County landfills.

The tipping fees increased July 1 to $75 per ton of trash, up from a $61 charge per ton in fiscal 2008. As gas prices increase, these fees skyrocket, Esworthy said.

The Westminster-based Community Media Center, the nonprofit organization that makes shows for and runs cable access in Carroll County, helped produce the video.

Karen Merkle, Carroll County Environmental Advisory Council chairwoman, appears in the video and says that landfills and incinerators — what some people call ‘‘waste-to-energy facilities” because they burn trash to generate electricity — are not the best way to deal with trash because of the environmental impact.

She says landfills can produce waste water that can leak into ground and surface water supplies. She adds that incinerators can produce harmful emissions that are not thoroughly studied, and residual ash from trash burning is put into landfills anyway.

‘‘The things we need to focus on are reducing, reusing and recycling,” she says, adding that Carroll County has one of the lowest recycling rates in the state, placing it third or fourth lowest in recycling participation, and that a ‘‘massive citizen campaign” is necessary to increase participation.

James Fleming of Sykesville, a rising third-grader at Piney Ridge Elementary School, is also featured in the video. James became interested in recycling some months ago, when he started to do so at his home.

‘‘We went down from three bags of trash to one bag of trash,” he says. He created a contest this past spring in Sykesville to raise awareness. Each participant, ranging from grades kindergarten through fifth, was required to create a poster advertising the importance of recycling.

Esworthy says in the video that with new single-stream recycling, which means material can be placed into the same bin for collection, it is now easier than ever to recycle.

The 20-minute video will be shown on cable Channel 23 throughout July, according to the Community Media Center Web site, www.cmcmd.tv⁄programming⁄channel23.html.

Esworthy said after the video presentation that the Public Works Department was working on a comprehensive list of recyclable materials and items, which will be posted to the town’s Web site, www.sykesville.net, when it is completed. He said he hoped this would clear up any confusion about the town’s recycling program.

The town has discussed options to encourage waste reduction, including only allowing 32-gallon trash containers for trash collection. While Esworthy said this switch could occur by September, Council President Jeannie Nichols said the council had not made a decision on this or any other waste reduction proposal.

‘‘The council has no time table to rush into anything,” she said.