Sanitation department restructured

City stressing recycling

By JODY MURPHY, jmurphy@newsandsentinel.com
PARKERSBURG — Citing a soaring increase in landfill rates, the city of Parkersburg is dedicating itself to increasing its efforts in recycling.

Parkersburg Mayor Bob Newell said the city needs to promote education, awareness and enforcement of recycling efforts. The mayor is even going so far as to rename the Sanitation Department as the Division of Waste and Recycling.

“The Sanitation Department doesn’t describe what the department does,” he said.

Parkersburg recently hired Doug Life to head the department and the drive to increase recycling efforts. Life is a former city firefighter who has also worked in accounting.

“I encouraged him to apply because of his background and my desire to have someone with a business background take over sanitation, because it is a business,” Newell said.

“The long-range plan is you teach people as they grow up,” Life said. “We would like to reach kids starting in elementary school. We are brainstorming as to how we can deliver this. We also want to contact the public — the adult population — to explain the advantage of recycling to them and the city.”

Newell said the city is also applying for a $150,000 recycling grant to promote education.

Northwestern Landfill was recently granted a rate increase that will increase Parkersburg’s rate from $25.30 a ton to $33.30 a ton. Newell said the city puts in about 52 tons of waste a day into the landfill.

The city charges its 12,500 residents only $11 a month.

With the rate increase, the city, which loses about $376,000 per year in garbage fees, will lose an additional $145,000 a year.

“If we can limit how much we put into the landfill that will reduce our costs,” Newell said.

Recycling center foreman James “JD” Dooley said the city recycles as much as 1,400 pounds of aluminum cans a month. The center also process an average of 15,000 to 20,000 pounds of plastics, 4,000 pounds of steel cans and seven tons of glass in an average month.

Both Life and Newell realize the recycling effort, no matter how successful, will never be a profitable enterprise.

Newell said the recycling center only brings in about $30,000 a year, less than half of the annual cost of the building, which is about $78,000. The recyclables, in addition to being collected from the city, are also brought by private haulers from around the area.

“We need to focus on recycling, because the more you recycle the less expensive it is,” Life said. “We don’t get a lot of money out of recycling, but we are not dumping it in the landfill. There is a little bit of money in the recycling process, but there is saving of expenses as well.”

Newell pointed out that recycling in the city is mandatory, yet less than half of the 12,500 residents participate.

“It is not about enforcement, it is getting the public to buy into it, while making it a little easier as well.

“This is what Doug’s job is going to be; to get the public motivated and give them the opportunity to recycle,” Newell said.