
{"id":1509,"date":"2007-12-20T08:24:44","date_gmt":"2007-12-20T16:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/12\/20\/community-members-question-ethics-of-exporting-garbage\/"},"modified":"2011-12-10T13:36:11","modified_gmt":"2011-12-10T18:36:11","slug":"community-members-question-ethics-of-exporting-garbage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/12\/20\/community-members-question-ethics-of-exporting-garbage\/","title":{"rendered":"Community members question ethics of exporting garbage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Editor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s note: This story is the fifth in a series that examines issues related to environmental justice and to the fight of the Rogers and Eubanks roads community to be relieved of what they allege to be an undue burden. To read the stories in this series and for other resources, go to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/rogers-road \">www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/rogers-road\u00c2\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>By Taylor Sisk<\/strong><br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Over the past few months, many in Orange County have been engaged in a discussion concerning environmental justice.<\/p>\n<p>Community members have asked: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is it right to demand that a neighborhood that has borne the unpleasant consequences of our county\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s landfill for over 35 years now be the location of yet another solid-waste facility?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Many have responded, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->But another question lies within this discussion of whether it would be an environmental injustice to further burden a neighborhood that most now acknowledge has shouldered, at the very least, its share \u00e2\u20ac\u201c another question of environmental justice: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Should a solid-waste transfer station be placed anywhere in Orange County?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The EPA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council defines waste transfer stations as facilities that are used for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153consolidating waste from multiple collection vehicles into larger, high-volume transfer vehicles for more economical shipment to distant disposal sites.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Distant disposal sites,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as in, generally speaking, rural, traditionally underserved communities.<\/p>\n<p>And so the question is asked \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as it was by Rev. Robert Campbell of the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism at the meeting at which the board of commissioners announced they were reopening the transfer station site search \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why do we want to send our trash to someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s backyard?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>When the commission takes comments from citizens, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not formally intended as a back-and-forth exchange, so the question then was largely rhetorical. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a question that a number of folks are asking: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is it, in fact, an environmental injustice to not take responsibility for our own waste?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>According to Gayle Wilson, solid-waste management director for Orange County, the fact that a previous county board of commissioners adopted a resolution stating that there would not be another municipal solid waste facility located in Orange County means, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We have not discussed, nor to my knowledge do we intend to, the location of a new municipal solid-waste landfill in the county.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Thus plans are now in motion to build a waste transfer station and to carry our garbage to another county.<\/p>\n<p>Of arguments that we shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be shipping waste out of Orange County, Wilson allows that, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that would be consistent with most commonly understood notions of sustainability and environmental responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153However, most of those people don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the responsibility to actually be the ones who go out and find [a new landfill] site and fight the fight and deal with the disgruntled community in which that facility is to be located.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153All things being equal, would it be better to have a landfill in county and be responsible for your own waste? I think most people would agree the answer to that is \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcyes.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 But the political realities are such that if you take the political reality of the transfer station and multiple it by 10 times, then you have the political reality of trying to site a landfill.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Further, Wilson says, there are ever fewer areas in the county that can support a modern landfill with the required buffers.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It just doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem like it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to happen,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wilson concludes. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen no real political will to pursue that. It would take a tremendous amount of energy and it would be very upsetting and divisive for the community.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcUnconscionable\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I would say it would be the biggest worm in the apple of Orange County progressive politics,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Mark Marcoplos about the decision to send our garbage elsewhere. Marcoplos has been speaking out about environmental issues in Orange County for many years; he served on the Orange Water and Sewer Authority board from 1999 to 2006, two years as chair.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unconscionable that we would feel good about sending our waste into a poor community, even if [in doing so] we spare a poor community that we know,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Marcoplos says.<\/p>\n<p>But regardless of the economic status of the community to which it would be carried, Marcoplos feels it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simply wrong to send our garbage packing.<\/p>\n<p>County Commissioner Mike Nelson agrees: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s horrible,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he recently told <em>The Citizen<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to build a transfer station, says Nelson, was a decision made \u00e2\u20ac\u0153long before I was on the county commission. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a decision I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t agree with.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Marcoplos believes, though, that the most critical mistake was made much further back \u00e2\u20ac\u201c back in the early &#8217;90s.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What happened was that the powers that be decided that we needed a new landfill,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Marcoplos recalls, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and they said that we needed it by 1996. So they set up this landfill owners group committee of citizens to search for a landfill site.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The meetings concerning the landfill, he says, were packed and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there was a lot of animosity, because people were coming out to defend their community from this landfill. There were probably about 13 communities organizing and coming to these meetings with their signs [reading], \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No to Site 10.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No to Site 2.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>So Marcoplos and a few others decided to recruit representatives from every community that was under consideration for a landfill and formed a group called the Orange County Landfill Council. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What we wanted to do was find out what we could do that we all could agree upon,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153knowing that the solution had to arise from that kind of discussion.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The group determined that waste reduction was key \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that there should not be any landfill sited in any community in Orange County,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Marcoplos, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153until we had the best, most-aggressive waste-reduction program that we could figure out, and that, [as a result], the landfill would be much, much smaller than the gargantuan mega-sites that they were proposing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Marcoplos describes it as a great process, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and we were able to bridge the NIMBY gap between all these people.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We went to the landfill owners group, and we presented to them this eminently sensible plan. And they said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWell, we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do that.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 And we said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWell, why not?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 And they said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBecause our job is [strictly] to site a landfill.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>That decision, Marcoplos believes, set in motion a chain of decisions that were undertaken without proper community input, and that ultimately painted the county into a corner defined by a transfer station.<\/p>\n<p>It hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t begun that way.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My standing joke,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Marcoplos says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153was that I would be standing there next to a Helms voter and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be agreeing on a Sierra Club position that we should reduce waste so that we wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a big landfill in our backyard. And it was a great lesson in local politics, that when things happen to people in a community, your party affiliation goes out the window and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re much more apt to find a logical solution just based on what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re finding in your community.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcCommonly understood notions\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mike Nelson struggled with the board of commissioners\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 decision to site a transfer station in Orange County.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong for us to ship our garbage to a poorer community,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Mike Nelson. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be in eastern North Carolina or in southeastern Virginia. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be a county that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s economically depressed. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s likely to be a county with a large minority population.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hypocritical of us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Marcoplos and other, like-minded environmentalists in the community believe we should be devising policies and practices that provide inspiration to reduce waste \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for example, economic-development programs founded on creating new products from waste.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we ship it to another community \u00e2\u20ac\u201c put it on trucks and send it out of here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Marcoplos says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re taking away incentive. If we control our own waste, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to do the right thing. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to learn how to reduce our waste.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The world needs aggressive environmental policies right now.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><strong>A leadership role<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In an Aug. 2 <em>News &amp; Observer<\/em> article, Jim Perry, president and CEO of Waste Industries, a company that wants to build a large landfill in Camden County, sought to justify importing trash from other states into North Carolina by saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There is a perception that North Carolina waste is special trash,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If I put two bags of garbage on the table, one from New York City and one from Apex, can you tell me that one is more toxic than the other? No.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>His argument seemed to miss the point made by those who object to garbage being moved from one place to another \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that point being that we should each deal with our own garbage \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but a rebuttal can be made that garbage moved from one place to another is, in fact, more toxic, in that additional pollutants are put into the air as a consequence of its transfer.<\/p>\n<p>Greg Dingman, who until recently was manager of the Solid Waste Disposal Division for Guilford County, says that on a typical day more than 50 tractor-trailer trucks come in and out of the transfer station in Greensboro. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153One day,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153just playing around, I was wondering about the environmental impact of that, so I did a little calculation, and have since refined it.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re putting an additional 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere just for the transfer of waste. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s over and above what we were putting in the air just from disposing of waste in the landfill.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>That hits home for Mark Marcoplos.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think it would be a huge positive commitment and a real source of pride that would infuse the rest of what we do here in Orange County,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Marcoplos says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if we were to say, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcOkay; we realize we need to take care of our waste. &#8230; We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to cut our waste so dramatically that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to be leaders, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to be national leaders in waste reduction. And we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to site a couple of small landfills and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to exceed all expectations for how this can work\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and just do it. We could do it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The answer, Marcoplos says, is to methodically apply common sense at every point in the waste stream.<\/p>\n<p>Marcoplos says he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s disappointed that the local activist community that stood up very admirably for keeping the transfer station away from Rogers and Eubanks roads isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t speaking out more against sending our waste somewhere else.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not healthy for us,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that the magnitude of the mistake that was made in 1992 is the major impediment to moving forward,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says in summing up our predicament today. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[The county commission] lost so much time, they just gave up. They made so many bad decisions in 1992, they hit the wall with the process and were so overwrought by the whole thing, and exhausted, that they just said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do it for a while.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 And they let time slip away.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They should have right away gotten on it, put energy into waste reduction and expanding the life of the landfill \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and they let it slide, just procrastinated \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and now that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s their reason for doing this transfer station: \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWe don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have time.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Marcoplos says he believes there are enough people who feel as he does \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that we ought to take care of our own waste \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that a sensible, workable solution will be realized. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m always optimistic.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can see the Carrboro board getting strong on this. I can see the Chapel Hill Town Council being in on it too.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maybe a good strategy would be,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he concludes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153since 65 percent, 70 percent of the garbage comes from down here [in the municipalities] anyway, to get the Chapel Hill Town Council and the Carrboro board to make a public statement that they want to seriously explore taking care of our own waste.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><em>In the Jan. 3 issue of <em>The Citizen<\/em>: A similar struggle in a community just to our north.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Editor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s note: This story is the fifth in a series that examines issues related to environmental justice and to the fight of the Rogers and Eubanks roads community to be relieved of what they allege to be an undue burden. To read the stories in this series and for other resources, go to www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/rogers-road\u00c2\u00a0 By&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1509"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22325,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions\/22325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}