8,000 thrown away each year
Article by Valerie MacDonald News Now Network/Guardian image
A proposal to keep mattresses and box springs out of Northumberland County landfill could add one more rear to the 11 remaining years of the Brighton Landfill’s life.
There are about 8,000 units brought into the landfill yearly, waste manager Adam McCue told public works committee members on Sept 8. They put a lot of empty “air” into the landfill and appear to be the “culprits” in fires that start in the Brighton facility. They also damage equipment when handling them, he said.
Instead, McCue is suggesting, as part of an “issue paper” for the 2023 budget that three new forklifts and ramps be installed at three recycling locations at a cost of about $315,000 in capitol costs plus about $150,000 in yearly annual operations-related costs to divert the mattresses and box springs to operations that focus on recycling them.
This could save “$2-million” in Northumberland “landfill capacity,” he said.
And… if there were a levy fee of $20 per box spring or mattress, the annual operating costs could fall to about $20,000, McCue said.
Asked whether this proposal could be introduced sooner since it would save so much capacity in the County’s only remaining landfill, public works chair Brian Ostrander said the timing was being pursued as part of the budget for 2023. It would also have to be endorsed by the county council as a whole.
Editor’s Note: Mattress disposal is huge problem worldwide. The Guardian says, “it’s not just a British problem. Mattresses are a global environmental nightmare. The US throws away 18.2m mattresses a year, but there are only 56 facilities available to recycle them.”
#landfill, #mattresses, #northumberlandcounty, #gettingridofmattresses
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