Jim Brown, supervisor of Hasting Charter Township and member of the Barry County Solid Waste Oversight Committee, told County Commissioners Tuesday that the committee needs a long range plan to deal with recycling at the local level.

 

Recycling has changed drastically since China stop taking our recyclable materials because of contamination and other countries are in the same process, he said.

 “There are no easy solutions, but there things we can do,” he said. The solid waste committee needs to know where commissioners stand on the overall picture of supporting recycling, both physically and financially.

 

He asked them to fill out a questionnaire similar to an earlier questionnaire sent to townships several years ago that showed “overwhelmingly” 70 percent positive in support for recycling “in a basic form and at a reasonable cost.”

The commissioner’s answers will be a “great help” in the thought and direction of the committee’s planning, he said. He asked they be returned to the committee before its next meeting Aug. 9.

 

The questions are:

Would a coordinated countywide recycling effort be more effective than several individual systems doing similar but different efforts-- yes or no?

 

If coordinated, should all villages, townships and cities be included in the plan--yes or no?

 

There is always a financial cost to recycling. Should this cost be fairly shared by each governmental entity; county, townships, villages and cities--yes or no?

 

No matter the plan, what should be the leading force to make it successful?

1.County commissioners-- yes or no?

2.An appointed committee under the solid waste committee’s direction--yes or no?

3.If an appointed committee, should a paid director be used for day to day operations--yes or no?//

 

A year and a half ago, when China shut off all the importation of all recyclable “materials” the country was shipping them, Brown said he made some comments at the Michigan Recycling Coalition.

 

“I said this is the best thing that ever could happen to us… Dead Silence…After I explained why…I got a round of applause, which shocked me to no end.  

 

“And, the reason I said that is because we’re too smart, we’ve got too much talent, to be shipping our garbage overseas, and we don’t need to ship garbage, we can actually take the material ourselves and use it.”

 

“When I walked out of the room, though, one of the big waste haulers, which I won’t name, called me over and said ‘that was a stupid thing to say.’

“Those people are in the collection business, they are very good at it and we need them, but we don’t need them to do what they are doing right now, which is basically mixing everything into one big pile and then hoping we can make some sense out of it.”

 

Brown said the collection is starting to shift to separating items as is it done in the recycling station at Hastings Township. He said in Barry County six townships have recycling programs, “but we could do a lot better.

 

“We need something for the whole county…but we can’t do it alone, so I want you to seriously take a look at that questionnaire; there’s a page in there for comments, be completely honest, because we need something to go forward with. If we’re going to do anything, we need to start planning and get with it.”

 

Commissioner Jon Smelker asked if there is a market for recycled material.

Right now, everything is priced very low, but recycling keeps people working, keeps items out of a landfill, helps the environment and is sometimes used to produce energy,  Brown said.

If it is done right, in the future it will pay to recycle, he said.