Expanded Recycling Program Coming....Eventually

It's just sixty days. When you've been waiting 20 years for something to come to pass, sixty days is nothing. Right?

For Athens Clarke County Commissioner Ed Robinson, sixty days is too long. He's been waiting decades for the county's recycling ordinance to include multi-family buildings and businesses as well as single family homes.

“We’ve needed this change for 20 years, and it’s not going to be as hard as the panicked responses I’ve heard," said Robinson. "It's not an onerous as people think."

But wait he must, so officials can resolve the problems. The Commission voted Tuesday night--after impassioned pleas from Mayor Denson, apartment owner Mike Power and solid waste hauler Courtney Elder--to delay the ordinance's passage so the measure can be "tweaked," said Commissioner Kathy Hoard.

After tweaking the ordinance and educating those affected, the Commission expects to find recycling facilities in locations such as apartment complexes, sorority and fraternity houses, churches, offices and hotels. That's the only way to achieve a significant jump in the recycling rate.

At Tuesday's ACC Commission meeting, Mike Power said he has been in property management in North Georgia for 45 years. He said he can't comply with the recycling ordinance because he can't control the behavior of 1,500 people living in his various Power Properties in Athens; he can't control what other people place in his dumpsters; and he can't pass on the expense of recycling to his tenants.

The frightened business people have misunderstood the law, commissioners said. The Mayor said there's lots of confusion over the issue. It merely mandates business owners to place facilities in their buildings or on their properties to collect aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles, paper, pizza boxes and other recyclables.

Commissioner George Maxwell said he has a daughter living in Raleigh, NC, where recycling facilities are in apartment complexes. Things worked fine, he said, you just need to educate people about what they need to do.

Since many of those renting in Athens are students, Commissioner Andy Herod wants educational information about recycling distributed to the apartment complex managers. They can then give the information to their tenants.

The Commission voted to hold the ordinance for 60 days for some "refinement."