Recycling and Waste

Waste management is another two-fold issue; we must deal with disposal of existing waste, as well as reducing future waste. Our island has an operating landfill with an estimated 7-years til capacity, an existing out-of-service bay at the landfill that requires maintenance, and we lack a Materials Recovery Facility altogether.

Implementation of Residential Curbside Recycling is necessary, however, first we must proceed with the construction of a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) to process those collected materials. The County has already sited a MRF and had the EA completed. We need a Materials Recovery Facility. This will reduce our solid waste and facilitate the initiation of the residential recycling pick up program.

The out-of-service bay of our landfill should be “mined and lined”, to prevent leaching toxins into the earth and ocean, and proactively extend the life of our existing landfill for 30 years. Rather than spending county budget to site another landfill, we should repair the existing landfill infrastructure and build a new MRF to process recyclables.

We MUST:

Fix (Mine and Reline) the old land fill.
Build a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) to recover and recycle our plastic paper and metal waste

This WILL:

1. This will give it another 30 years of life and stop it from leaking toxins into the soil, which it is doing now
2. Reduce the amount of non-recyclable waste going into the land fill
3. Allow us to correctly and environmentally recycle
4. Begin implementing Residential Recycle Container Pick Up
5. Produce More Jobs