Recycled complaint
Councilman Vince Gardina’s passion for recycling came to the fore during the council’s April 14 work session when Ed Adams, director of the county’s public works department, appeared to get the first payment installment for a joint project with Harford County. The project is a plant near Aberdeen Proving Grounds that generates energy by burning trash.
When Adams asked for approval for an initial payment of $375,000, Gardina used the opportunity to get on his soap box. He started recycling his complaints about … you guessed it, the county’s recycling program.
“Our recycling program — I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — is inadequate,” Gardina told Adams.
Gardina called the facility an incinerator and said he wanted to talk about the county recycling program.
“It’s not a good thing,” Gardina said.
“It’s a very good thing,” countered Adams.
The county is not doing enough to encourage recycling, according to Gardina.
“We’re dragging our feet on a recycling program. We don’t have an intense effort to have more recycling. We should have been more stringent with our recycling program years ago and get more participation. People don’t realize the importance of it or they don’t like the mixed pick-up days or whatever the reason,” Gardina said. “We’re promoting this and we should be promoting recycling.”
“We haven’t lost sight of the recycling program,” Adams said. This is really about trying to take care of our future needs for the trash.”
“Under no circumstances do I think we could ever say we’re going to recycle our way out of needing landfills,” Adams said.
Gardina called the facility “an incinerator. That’s all it is.”
“You have no solid waste that you throw out?” Adams asked Gardina.
“Very little,” Gardina responded. “One, couple bags a week.”
This is not the first time in recent months that Gardina has given Adams and other officials an earful on the issue of recycling.
Last November, Gardina told recycling officials he believes “most people don’t voluntarily recycle.”
He said then, “You get people who are interested in protecting the environment and recycling and you get others who could care less and throw everything away,”
Gardina called for mandatory recycling and perhaps even the creation of a “recycling police” to check residential trash cans for compliance.
“There has to be some political will to change some things,” Gardina said. “Everyone is hesitant to have mandatory recycling because they’re afraid the public is going to be upset with them. You know the public needs to understand the importance of recycling.”