Recycling totals 461 tons for Fayetteville last year

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

Fayetteville residents recycled 461 tons of material last year that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill somewhere.

That's only 11.6 percent of the 3,507 tons of garbage collected here, however. The city's curbside recycling program is the main way it tries to meet the state goal of reducing the amount of garbage headed to landfills by 25 percent.

In 2001, the city managed to recycle 490 tons of material through the curbside program, near the record peak recorded in 1996 of 496 tons.

The program has stopped collecting glass bottles for recycling because of the lack of vendors, according to City Engineer Don Easterbrook.

City Manager Joe Morton said there is no way to tell how the end of the glass recycling will affect the city's recycling figures. He estimated that roughly half of the homes in the city recycle, although the company makes a run once each week to collect recyclables.

The recyclable material such as aluminum cans, plastic and newsprint don't have to be separated by residents because it is done at the recycling plant, Morton added.

A number of Fayetteville residents also recycle their yard waste at the county's landfill, but since county residents also use that service there is no way to determine how may city residents participate, Morton said.