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IRC may step up recycling enforcement

The group operating recycling programs in central Blair County must improve its enforcement of recycling laws, according to the organization’s interim executive director.

While not widespread, trashing of recyclables by a couple of haulers has been happening, and it violates ordinances in Altoona, Hollidaysburg and Logan Township, said Brock Bryan of the Intermunicipal Relations Committee.

“There are a few bad eggs,” Bryan said. “I know we can do a better job.”

Committee member Brady Leahey raised the issue at two successive meetings.

Leahey knows it’s happening from personal observation. Residents who take the trouble to do the right thing deserve to have the materials they set out handled correctly.

There’s “a very passionate part of the community that wants to recycle,” Bryan said.

But enforcement requires unambiguous eyewitness or video evidence to get a conviction and a serious fine by a magisterial district judge.

One successful prosecution involved a customer who took a video of her properly prepared bins, followed by her hauler throwing the contents into a compactor, said solicitor Dan Stants.

The current situation with 15 haulers operating in the IRC territory may require “hitting the streets,” Bryan said.

Typically, when haulers see an IRC vehicle, they comply religiously with all the rules. They also often summon the IRC officials over to show them problems — like contamination in bins.

That could be paper towels mixed with office paper or non-recyclable packaging in unflattened appliance boxes, he said.

Some haulers may be too ready to use a bit of contamination as an excuse to trash recyclables, Leahey said.

It may behoove the IRC to call a meeting to reinforce the hauler requirements, said Bryan and committee Chairman Jim Patterson, a Logan Township supervisor.

It may also help to educate the public, so customers can “keep a better eye,” to ensure their haulers do what’s right, one official said.

Customers likewise need to be reminded how to properly prepare their bins, Patterson said.

There are some who simply refuse to do what’s required, he said.

Some recycling organizations in the state routinely tag recycling bins on the curbside as properly or improperly prepared, as an educational tool for residents, Bryan said.

Given the enforcement difficulties with the existing setup, in which households subscribe individually with haulers, it may make sense for each municipality to contract with a single hauler, to ensure compliance, said committee member Jim Gehret, Hollidaysburg Borough manager.

Under the current setup, a hauler can afford to lose a customer, if the hauler is discovered trashing that customer’s recyclables, Gehret said.

That’s not the case under a single hauler contract, he said.

Tyrone has had a single-hauler contract for years, and it has worked out, he said.

But the idea is unpopular locally, Gehret conceded. “I know no municipality (in the IRC) wants to take it on.”

A single hauler contract could hurt local haulers who don’t bid successfully. “I don’t want to put anyone out of business,” he said

One option for residents who aren’t confident their haulers are properly dealing with recyclables is to switch haulers, Bryan said.

If word got out about hauler performances, it might raise the level of performance generally, Leahey said.

Municipalities mandated by the state’s Act 101 to recycle, like Altoona, Hollidaysburg and Logan Township, must have ordinances with enforcement provisions, according to John Repetz, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Haulers that continually refuse to comply with their local regulations risk suspension or revocation of their waste hauler authorization, Repetz said.

One reason for hauler noncompliance may be the current poor market for recyclable materials. Two haulers told Bryan it can cost more to offload recyclables than to offload them for the landfill.

Metal, paper and cardboard are currently profitable, but not aways plastic – and not glass, Bryan said, based on the IRC’s own marketing experience.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.

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