Transformation at the county dumps
‘Fewer bears coming in and fewer birds coming in and less smell and blown debris’
Four new enormous trash compactors were delivered to Flatwood and the Amissville Refuse Center, part of e orts to transform the way the county processes its waste. Page
At the Flatwood Refuse Center last week, County Administrator Garrey Curry shows a visitor some of the county’s newest acquisitions. He appears as pleased with these new purchases as if they were shiny new sports cars. But these pieces of equipment won’t be zooming down 211 crushing speed limits and defying the blue lights of Virginia State Troopers.
Rather they will be crushing trash, lots and lots of trash. Four new enormous trash compactors were delivered to Flatwood and the Amissville Refuse Center just a few weeks ago. They are part of Curry’s e orts to transform the way the county processes its waste.
Last October Curry informed the Board of Supervisors that the knuckle-boom truck used by Community Trash Removal (an Updike Company) to empty the waste pits located at the Flatwood and Amissville Centers was out of service and there was not an opportunity for a cost-e cient repair. And the company was not inclined to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace the truck.
Updike emptied the concrete trash pits one last time before sta closed them o with orange construction fencing. Following were several months of over-full temporary trash bins at both centers, and lots of complaints from county residents.
In February, the BOS authorized Curry to identify new equipment vendors and enter into an agreement with Page County for picking up and disposing of the county’s waste, as the beginning of what Curry called “a shi in how we do things” that also includes a new protocol for handling recyclables.
“The main change here is that rather than placing household waste, bag waste, into the top of containers, it will now go into one of two compactors,” he told the Rappahannock News during the Flatwood visit last week. “Each compactor can handle the equivalent capacity of four to eight of the 40-foot open top bins we’ve been using.”
The result: fewer trips by Page County and less expense for Rappahannock. “The agreement with Page County has us paying [them] $150 per trip,” Curry says, “to take any bin, full bin, open bin, any bin. So that will happen about one- h as [many times]” now with the compactors.
Plus, he says, “We will no longer
exposed trash in the open-top containers or the open-top pits. All the trash is now tucked away, compacted inside a container which means fewer bears coming in and fewer birds coming in and less smell and blown debris.”
The compactors are a shiny grey — they even have that new paint smell — but stand imposing on newly poured concrete pads. “The new look won’t last long,” Curry says, as he gently peels what looks like a piece of onion skin from the side of one of the huge machines.
He explains that the equipment will be operated by refuse center staff. “The staff at each center will decide when it needs to [run]. People will come and throw their trash into the open hopper. And once it becomes full then the operator will push the button and it will slide the ram pushing the waste into the container. Once the container fills up, the operator will simply move to the other compactor, make a call to Page County to come pick up the full container.”
Page County will also process Rappahannock’s recyclables. In a press release issued Tuesday, Curry said, “Our partners in Page County have established a very effective recycling program providing assurance that the material citizens deliver to our centers makes its way into the recycling market. Rappahannock County receives the value of the recyclables provided as a credit on our monthly invoice from Page County.”
The new recycling protocol requires citizens to break down materials into six categories: cardboard, paper, plastic, aluminum, metal, and glass.
“It is critical for patrons of the Rappahannock County centers to follow the listed requirements when recycling,” Curry says. “Improper materials placed within the containers at our centers can lead to contamination of the recycling stream causing at worst, materials to be landfilled, and at best, extra staff time to sort materials.”
He has to speak up over the sound of someone pouring glass bottles into a recycling container.
The Amissville center is seeing some additional changes to its physical plant — a new traffic pattern that loops around the facility, making it easier for drivers to navigate through the center.
By the time the transformation is complete, the open concrete pits at both centers will be partly demolished and refashioned to accept big items that don’t fit in the compactor, like an old couch.
“It will be nice when we get to [the end point] finally, but that’s still months away,” Curry says. “This is an iterative process.”