City taking steps to reduce, recycle trash

Recycling is one of today’s more hotly debated issues, its proponents still forced to defend against challenges to its efficacy on environmental and economic grounds.

Nevertheless, its potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — a major factor in climate change — to slow the growth in the demand for energy, and the need for general care for the community must be promoted.

As The Commercial Appeal’s Tom Charlier reported last week, recycling and other factors have helped divert mountains of trash from landfills in Tennessee and elsewhere.

That is especially important in urban areas like Memphis, where every acre of land devoted to the storage of waste is one less acre that can be preserved for productive purposes.

In Tennessee, Shelby County is leading the way in a significant slowdown in the amount of waste that goes into landfills, according to a state survey.

Two Shelby County landfills operated by Republic Services, which also has a long-term contract with the city to accept and process recyclables, each have more than 25 years' space to spare.

Most of the rest of the state has avoided capacity problems, as well. Of 31 landfills operating across the state, 13 have more than 25 years' capacity, while another nine have space that could keep them operating another 10 years. Only four waste sites have five years or less worth of space.

As Scott Banbury, coordinator of conservation programs for the Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club, argues, the capacity among existing landfills is "no reason to keep throwing stuff away and not recycling."

Recycling still faces a number of challenges, including restrictions imposed by China on the imports of several types of recyclable material and stricter contamination standards on others.

There have also been reductions in the demand for some commodities derived from recycling programs.

Locally, residents can be discouraged from recycling if there is poor performance by contractors hired to collect household waste as well as recyclable materials.

In Memphis as well as Germantown, numerous complaints have been registered by customers regarding weekslong delays in garbage and recyclable collections by Inland Waste Solutions.

The Florida-based company collects garbage and recyclables at more than 35,000 homes on Memphis’ eastern side, or about a fifth of the city's 174,000 solid waste customers.

Thankfully, the city will rebid the expiring contract, which should produce either a new contractor or better performance by Inland. Two other positive notes: The City Council, reacting to a public outcry over plans to issue $50 fines for violating waste collection rules, is considering an extension of the hours garbage carts are allowed at curbs.

And council chairman Berlin Boyd has suggested imposing a nominal "plastic checkout bag tax" to discourage the use of bags that often litter streets and waterways.

Recent revelations about the harm to marine life caused by the careless disposal of plastic has stimulated consideration of alternatives, if not outright bans, on the use of plastic bags and certain kinds of packing materials.

Memphis must continue to promote waste reduction, recycling and reuse. We are long past the stage in which the “do-nothing” alternative is a viable option for the garbage we produce.