A Step Backwards from Zero Waste

Back in the late 1980s when the local recycling program was still located within the town of Chapel Hill, Blair Pollock guided a team of intrepid residents (mostly women, including me) in the creation of the town’s first waste reduction plan. We advocated for 1) reuse, 2) composting, and 3) wise shopping in addition to the already active curbside recycling program. 

Around 1993, salvage sheds were added to the waste & recycling centers located throughout the county. Furniture, appliances, toys, books, and just about anything else can be dropped off at one of the salvage sheds for someone else to pick up and reuse. The salvage sheds were convenient options, but not as important to our community waste reduction goal back when the PTA Thrift Store in Carrboro was still a mainstay of the community, helping to recirculate usable clothing, furniture, housewares, books, toys, and much more into the community while also funding PTA activities within the schools.  

That long-ago waste reduction plan has been met and exceeded exponentially over the years. The list of items that can be recycled has multiplied many times over and community participation has grown so significantly that those initial monthly pickups in orange bins in town are now bi-weekly with big blue rollout carts throughout the county. Best of all, several generations of children have grown up taking recycling and reuse for granted–it’s just something everyone does.

Thanks to the recycling and reuse mentality that is so strongly imprinted on local residents, when the PTA Thrift Store stopped sending its profits to the local PTA, networks of moms self-organized to share gently used kids clothing via email. Suburban neighborhoods are setting up their own local composting programs to complement the County’s commercial composting program, and there are compost drop-off sites along with a greatly expanded recycling program at the five (5) Waste & Recycling Centers located around the county and the Saturday Farmers Market in Carrboro. And the salvage sheds at the waste & recycling centers became much more active.

When the salvage sheds closed during Covid, many of us stockpiled until they re-opened. When the shed at Ferguson Road closed, we drove all the way out to Eubanks. We have become a community dedicated to reuse and sharing. So when the Solid Waste Management Office recently announced that the sheds would be closed on Sundays–the highest volume of activity occurs on the weekends–they should have expected an outcry.

That outcry hasn’t happened yet, but this is your call to write to the County Commissioners and remind them that the Waste & Recycling Centers are already closed on Wednesdays for cleaning and maintenance. The sheds are also emptied of any remaining items each night at closing. A second closure, especially on one of the highest volume days, just moves us away from the zero waste goal adopted by the County, not closer to it.

Please support our zero waste goal. Send your emails to ocbocc@orangecountync.gov asking for the salvage sheds to remain open on Sundays (as they have been for over 30 years).