Money keeps going out with the trash
Letters to the editor are among the most highly read items in this newspaper. In fact, readership surveys have shown they are second only to obituaries in readership. We wish more readers would take advantage of this opportunity to express their opinions because their ideas often inspire debate in the community and sometimes lead to much-needed change.
Two letters to the editor published recently are likely to provoke much thought. One letter from an Avella-area resident was critical of Independence Township’s plan to construct a $3 million park when three other parks – Cross Creek County Park, Cross Creek Township Park and Brooke Hills Park in West Virginia – are in close proximity.
A city resident’s letter pointed out that even as the cost of hauling trash keeps rising, Washington is doing little to encourage or enforce recycling, which can lower the costly volume of trash going to the Arden landfill.
Although these letters were on different topics, there’s a thread of similarity running through them. Our antiquated system of government divides Washington County into 66 separate municipalities, each with its own responsibilities for law enforcement, road maintenance, taxation, recreation and other services. Instead of governmental bodies joining together to provide these services regionally, provincial attitudes usually prevail.
Thus, we have small municipalities maintaining their own parks, police and road departments at greater expense than would be incurred by cooperation beyond boundaries established, in some cases, more than two centuries ago when life here was vastly different.
The Arden landfill is a regional facility. City residents are paying $243 a year to have their trash hauled there. Bills from Waste Management for residents living a few miles outside Washington are 50 percent higher, and the costs keep rising. How high will they go when the landfill reaches capacity and trash must be hauled somewhere else?
Pennsylvania requires only municipalities with populations above 5,000 and more than 300 people per square mile to have curbside recycling. Most Washington County townships and boroughs with populations below 5,000 have no recycling programs because they are not required to. East Washington, which has twice-a-month curbside recycling, is an admirable exception.
Residents of those smaller municipalities who wish to recycle must now haul recyclables themselves to the containers at the Arden facility.
It would make sense for those small townships and boroughs to encourage recycling in order to extend the life of the landfill and keep the cost for their residents of trash pickup down.
According to the March 22 letter, Independence Township received a $76,800 grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to build a park.
The rest of the $3 million and the cost of maintaining the park will need to be found locally. Would it not be better to put some of those resources toward a recycling program?
In many other parts of the country, people are spending a lot less to have their trash hauled by recycling more.
We need to stop throwing recyclable materials – and our money – away.