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Pasco Studying Mandatory Recycling
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Published: October 9, 2007
DADE CITY, Fla. - DADE CITY, Fla. - Pasco County is moving a bit closer to mandatory trash recycling.
Weary of cussing and discussing the topic of mandatory recycling over and over again, commissioners made noises they're finally get serious about developing a plan.
A consultant would be necessary to pull together a master plan, commissioners determined.
"This is really a big topic and we really need to talk trash on this," Commission Chairwoman Ann Hildebrand said today.
Commissioners should consider scheduling a separate, workshop meeting devoted solely to recycling, Hildebrand suggested.
Commissioners keep talking about switching from the county's current voluntary recycling program to mandatory recycling but haven't given county staff any real direction, responded Commissioner Michael Cox.
"I, for one, want to see us set some kind of goal" toward mandatory recycling, Cox said.
"Our waste-to-energy plant is telling us we need to do this," Cox said.
Cox was referring to the Pasco County Resource Recovery Facility. At the plant on Hays Road, in the Shady Hills area, the county burns the bulk of the trash collected by garbage haulers in Pasco to generate electricity.
Trash sometimes can swamp the incinerator's current capacity. Increasing that capacity by adding a fourth boiler at the plant, however, would cost in the neighborhood of $150 million.
Recycling will help postpone such a costly expansion at the resource-recovery plant and take pressure off landfills, commissioners have speculated.
Pasco would be able to duplicate the success of a Polk County recycling operation, Commissioner Jack Mariano observed.
At the very least, Mariano said, Pasco could adopt the Hernando County method of mandatory recycling.
Hernando officials chose to start with only the most densely populated area and assigned a single hauler to collect all recyclable trash in that area.
Under the current voluntary recycling program, the nine private garbage haulers that operate in the county pick up recyclable trash placed at curbside in blue bags on alternating weeks.
Read more on possible mandatory recycling in the Oct. 13 West Pasco print edition of The Suncoast News.
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