By Steve Huffman
shuffman@salisburypost.com
Garbage collection across the county, state and nation is down, and a depressed economy is largely responsible.
“Think about it,” said Kathryn Jolly, director of Rowan County’s environmental management. “It’s an indicator. If Christmas sales are down, your trash is going to be down. You stop buying, you stop throwing away.”
Gauging the downturn in Rowan County waste is difficult because Waste Management closed a transfer station in East Spencer last year. The Salisbury trash previously handled by Waste Management is now carried by Rowan County, meaning more is being toted to the county’s landfill.
Paul Canup, environmental manager of the landfill, said that as a result, the amount of trash being carried to the site has increased slightly. He said if Waste Management hadn’t halted its Rowan County operation, the amount of trash carried to the county’s landfill would have surely declined.
In the past, that trash was carried to an out-of-county landfill.
“When I talk to landfill operators where nothing has changed, that’s the case,” Canup said of reports of a downturn in trash collection. “I think ours would be down if none of the variables had changed.”
Calls by the Post to several private trash collectors in Rowan County were not returned earlier this week.
According to the Associated Press, in some parts of the United States, some landfill operators have witnessed a 30 percent downturn in tonnage over the past year.
San Francisco is disposing of less in landfills than it has in 30 years. In San Diego, disposal rates are on track to hit the lowest totals in 15 years.
Jan McHargue, solid waste administrator for Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, said a 19 percent decline in construction debris in 2008 is “more likely related to economic factors.”