Bay County Lacks a Recycling Program, Making it Difficult for Residents to Recycle

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) – Everyone knows the saying “cut back, reuse, recycle”, nevertheless, that may be troublesome for Bay County residents due to the shortage of a conventional recycling program.

Practically 800 tons of trash are dumped at Bay County’s Steelfield Landfill every day. The landfill supervisor, Glen Ogburn, says there isn’t a county recycling program, and there seemingly received’t be one anytime quickly.

“For a few years, Bay County relied on the Bay County Waste Power Facility for recycling. Even that wasn’t a standard method of recycling. We acquired credit for producing vitality from the quantity of waste, the plastics, and stuff. Sadly, we closed it due to the price of operation some time again,” mentioned Ogburn.

The incinerator because the Waste Power Facility would burn trash like plastics to provide electrical energy and the county would get compensated for it. However since its closing, plastic together with different recyclable supplies like glass, aluminum, and paper sits in landfills.

“We haven’t established an energetic recycling program,” mentioned Ogburn.

Whereas there’s not a county-wide program for family trash, there are some supplies which might be recycled.

“We recycle issues that we are able to economically achieve this. We recycle home equipment, scrap metals, issues of that nature, issues that we now have an area marketplace for,” Ogburn defined.

The Environmental Safety Company is elevating a pink flag. In line with the EPA, trash is harming mom nature by threatening wildlife, contaminating our bodies of water, and altering habitats. That’s why environmentalists are talking out.

“Recycling is de facto necessary as a result of there are such a lot of of us residing on this planet and we are able to’t afford to maintain utilizing it and throwing it away. We have now restricted assets that we now have to work with so recycling is a part of how we are able to deal with that,” mentioned John Hocevar, Greenpeace.

Bay County officers we talked with say for this space all of it comes all the way down to cash.

“It’s all economics. It’s not simply that, recycling as an entire proper now, the marketplace for recycling is depressed. It’s troublesome for anybody to recycle. I feel, for those who examine with surrounding counties they’re beneath the identical state of affairs that we’re. Domestically, we don’t have however a few distributors that take recyclable supplies, principally metals. There’s no person native that take plastics, or something like that, so we now have to ship it someplace at value to have it recycled,” mentioned Ogburn.

In Fort Walton Seaside, there’s been a door-to-door recycling program since 2014. Fort Walton Seaside Public Works Supervisor, Jerry Gunn, tells us this system is free to residents because of a Strong Waste Enterprise fund. Nevertheless, it value town about $400,000 to get the recycling program up and operating.

“Taking our recycling materials to ECUA, in Pensacola, with a value to town of $25 per ton. That’s about $50,000 per 12 months,” mentioned Gunn.

Again in 2018, China stopped taking most plastics from the USA. That is usually cited as a cause in opposition to implementing a recycling program as a result of many recycling facilities have been overwhelmed with plastic. Regardless of this, Gunn says the recycling program in Fort Walton Seaside isn’t going anyplace.

“For this to be a profitable program your residents actually need to take part to make it profitable. So long as we are able to proceed to divert away from the landfill, we’re going to proceed to attempt to hold this system up and going. Recycling will not be a really marketable commodity proper now so there’s not some huge cash to be concerned in that proper now, ” mentioned Gunn.

Environmentalist, John Hocevar with Greenpeace, argues in opposition to placing revenue above all else.

“The choices round recycling contain cash and political energy. So once we elect those who perceive ‘We worth recycling, we care in regards to the setting.’ You realize, these are value-based choices,” mentioned Hocevar.

Lots of these making the choices say it’s robust to steadiness out.

“Lots of people who do come right here from different areas they’re used to having a longtime recycling program they usually’re form of disheartened once we don’t have one, however I’ll inform you, that’s a political resolution. I’ll go away that as much as the residents of Bay County. In the event that they need to have a recycling program, however any individual has to pay for it,” mentioned Ogburn.

Whereas the controversy continues, Hocevar says one factor we are able to do is restrict plastics altogether.

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