Solid waste district has plans for more and better recycling

NELSONVILLE — During a Wednesday meeting, the Athens-Hocking Solid Waste District (AHSWD) board looked at purchasing the building and infrastructure of the struggling Athens-Hocking Recycling Center and joining regional Southeast Ohio Regional Terminal Council of Government (COG), an organization that is just getting off the ground.

The board met Wednesday at the Nelsonville Public Library, 95 W. Washington St., Nelsonville. The board also the discussed its financial plans for 2025 through 2040, and it is “all good news,” said district Director Jane Forrest Redfern.

Its plan is to purchase the building and infrastructure of the Athens-Hocking Recycling Center , and in the meantime to join the regional Southeast Ohio Regional Terminal Council of Government (COG), an organization that is just getting off the ground. It currently has only the village of Amesville as a member, but has courted the City of Athens , Athens Township, Nelsonville and Logan, among others, as potential members.

The idea behind the COG, floated first by former AHRC director Bruce Underwood in 2023, is to create a coalition that can, on a broader scale and more efficiently, bring recycling services to communities in the region.

The purchase of the AHRC building, and the transference of its existing trash and recycling services into the COG, is a plan that received support Wednesday from current AHRC director Crissa Cummings.

To raise money for the purchase and to upgrade its services during the next 15 years, the district’s board declined to raise generation or tiered fees on landfills to supplement its budget. This would have subjected trash haulers to higher fees, likely increasing rates for consumers across the two counties.

The AHSWD decided Wednesday on a different tack, one that will have to go through public hearings during the summer before it can be adopted by the respective counties by early 2025.

The board hopes each county passes a new parcel fee on landowners, seen as a more stable and less costly model to residents than the increased generation and tiered fees.

“We do a pretty good job with what we have, and this will provide us stable funding for the future,” Forrest Redfern told APG Ohio.

The parcel fee would come to exactly $1 per month per parcel owned, if passed. In order for it to be adopted, it will also have to go through a separate public hearing process.

“I had a public official earlier tell me they spent $12 on lunch, and that is what (parcel owners) would be paying annually to buy into our growing recycling services,” Forrest Redfern said. The fee, which requires passage from each county commission, would be added as a line item on property taxes.

Supposing the financial plan for the AHSWD goes through, the list of priorities is long, but it should be seen as a 15-year project, not an all-at-once proposition.

Redfern Forrest said that topping the list of priorities is a renovation of Sutton Road Recycling Center in Hocking County that the district currently owns, and which is without plumbing. As things stand now, those who want to dispose of hard-to-recycle materials at Sutton Road have to schedule an appointment. With improvements and better staffing, it is possible that the center could become a five-day-a-week operation.

In addition to increased outreach and educational staff for the AHSWD, an increase in funding from the parcel fees — estimated as a $770,664 annual boon to the district, across the two counties — could also go toward multi-unit housing (i.e. apartment) recycling pick-up, which is significantly more challenging than pickup for single-family homes.

This would perhaps impact the area around Ohio University the most, where off-campus apartment housing is extensive.

Other proposed programs looking to be offered through the COG include the purchase of a bio-digester and tub grinder to be used regionally — both important and expensive-to-rent pieces of equipment that would help increase composting in our rural area.

“It’s a really exciting time for the district,” Forrest Redfern said. “The Ohio economy is seeing that recycling is not just picking up things at the curb, but a source of sustainable resources that are cheaper to produce than their un-used and -recycled counterparts.”