You may have heard that one day the Orange County landfill on Eubanks Road will close and the plan is to have in its place a site for collecting and preparing for redistribution the county’s solid waste—scratch that—our solid waste.
From there the waste will be sent out of sight, but where it goes and the consequences of that decision on our part should not be out of mind.
As recently elected commissioner Mike Nelson noted upon the county decision to locate a waste transfer station at the landfill, we will not be shipping our waste to some “happyland with elves dancing.†No, more likely we’ll be shipping our waste to one of the very megadumps proposed for North Carolina that has many of us around here in an uproar.
It’s possible our waste will head out of state to Virginia or Pennsylvania, but if you think there is somehow a disconnect between our waste and the demand driving the massive landfills proposed throughout this state, guess again.
Last year, the sheer size of just five of these proposed sites shocked enough legislators into voting for a one-year moratorium while the state drafts new rules.
That moratorium will be history this fall, and we’ll see what laws result after the dozens of lobbyists already walking the halls in Raleigh on behalf of Waste Management and Browning Ferris have their day.
It’s a sad fact, but a safe guess, that by the end of this decade when we cut the ribbon on the new transfer station, the state will be deep in the mega dump business.
So what will we be getting into or, more accurately, where will our waste be going? How about Camden County? There’s a nice site there under consideration right in the old Dismal Swamp where a proposed landfill will be roughly 270 feet high and cover 500 acres. Or maybe we should send it down to Scotland County or Hyde County or Richmond County or Columbus County—all places where governments are tempted and citizens fighting have a tough row to hoe.
As commissioner Barry Jacobs pointed out in a discussion of the transfer station last month, this is an issue with multi-faceted moral questions. There is no easy answer or even a “right†answer.
But while we ponder where our trash ends up, there are some positive steps we can take. To begin with, we can all help to make less garbage.
Composting, sorting out recyclables, reusing containers and shopping smart to reduce packaging waste are places to start.
Barring a change in course, our garbage will soon be headed out beyond our borders and Orange County will leave its footprint somewhere. We’ll do its recipients, our state and the county’s bottom line a favor by treading as lightly as we can.
The Wednesday/Thursday thing
An honest question: Does your paper come out on Wednesday or Thursday?
An honest answer: Yes.
So far, our readers and advertisers have been very polite and understanding as we try to work toward a deadline that will get the newspaper on the press in time for a dinner-time Wednesday delivery.
That’s the goal, but having the leeway (thank you) to spend a little more time to shoehorn all the news around here into 12 pages has been a blessing for body and soul.
From the vantage point of Issue Number 3, getting the paper to the streets on Wednesday is still a few weeks away. Getting it on the Web is not.
So, for the time being, expect the digital version of The Carrboro Citizen to be on the internets by Wednesday afternoon, and, for some stories, even sooner. Expect those freshly printed copies of the dead-tree edition Thursday around lunchtime.
And thanks for your patience. Really. We’re sleeping better because of it