“We wanted to refresh those agreements,” Director of Environmental Services for Montgomery County Pat Turnbull said. “Residents will see no difference.”
The last waste service agreements in the county were signed in 1985, around the time that the Montgomery County Solid Waste District was formed, Turnbull said.
“There have been a lot of changes since then,” Turnbull said. “I think back when those original agreements were signed, the county was still incinerating trash. And some of the communities in Montgomery County didn’t exist, or didn’t exist in their current form.”
The primary purpose of “refreshing” those agreements is getting all of those communities to commit to bringing their waste to the county’s transfer station, Turnbull said. That allows the county to get the most economical price for hauling and disposal of trash.
Because the county pools all its communities together, it is able to contract with Rumpke to haul and dispose trash.
The waste transfer station sees roughly half a million tons of trash per year.
Solid waste tonnage has been increasing every year for the past couple of years. That could be because people generate more trash when the economy is good, Turnbull said.
Montgomery County also has seen what Turnbull called the “Amazon effect.” More people are online shopping, leading to more cardboard and packaging materials. Turnbull encouraged residents to recycle their cardboard waste.
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