2005 ANNUAL REPORT

The District has made recycling more convenient for all residents. All the part-time recycling sites in the District have been converted to full-time sites. Residents now have access to our recycling sites 24 hours a day — every day! The change not only makes it easier to recycle, it also helps the District achieve the recycling access goal established by the Ohio EPA.

Additionally, the District has added eight new sites in Columbiana County. J&J Refuse submitted a proposal to the District to provide and service the recycling containers for all the current and 12 new recycling sites in the County. Their proposal specified changing all the recycling containers in Columbiana County to contractor-owned six cubic-yard front-load containers that they will service one to two times per week. Depending on the volume collected, each recycling site in the County has between two and nine containers. As of the end of 2005, eight of the 12 new sites have been established.

We hope more residents will recycle and, by doing so, increase the recycling rate in the County. Recycling not only saves money, but also saves landfill space.

In December 2004, the District began working with the Landscaping Program at the Columbiana County Career and Technical Center (CCCTC). The CCCTC is the new "main site" for Christmas trees collected in Columbiana County. Residents, townships and municipalities brought their tress to the CCCTC, where the Landscaping students and faculty chipped the trees into mulch for use by the program. Not only does this program give the students first-hand experience with another facet of landscaping, it also allows them to help protect the environment at the same time.

Since 1996, the District has been holding annual Appliance, Electronics, Scrap Metal, and Tire Collections. Thanks to our residents, County Highway garages, Recycling & Litter Prevention programs, Townships and Municipalities, 51.96 tons of scrap, including appliances, 10.93 tons of electronics, and 161.26 tons of tires were diverted from landfills in 2005.

Grant money in the amount of $6,476.41 was utilized by the District for its annual Tire Collection events. This money was the portion the District was able to use of the $10,000 grant awarded by ODNR, Division of Recycling & Litter Prevention. This money was used to pay for the transportation of the tires from each of our three collection events, the disposal costs of those tires collected, and a portion of our advertising costs. The District collected 4,500 tires at our three collection events.

Municipalities, Townships, County Garages, and County Recycling & Litter Prevention Programs were able to take their tires directly to the tire recycling facility and the District paid for the processing costs. In 2005, the number of tires that were transported directly to the landfills increased dramatically. The total number of tires recycled by these government entities was over 5,600, making the total number of tires recycled in the District in 2005 over 10, 000 (161+ tons). Thank you to everyone who participated !

The District nominated The Village of Carrollton for the Ohio EPA Exemplary Community Award, which is awarded to a local community that has demonstrated an exemplary commitment to recycling, waste reduction, and alternative waste management. Carrollton was one of two communities in the State of Ohio that received the award. Carrollton has had a Volume-Based Garbage Collection (also known as Pay-As-You-Throw) with free curbside recycling since 1999. The Village has the highest per-capita recycling rate in Carroll County. The Carrollton curbside recycling rate is 120 pounds per person compared to the Carrollton Drop-off recycling site (the highest volume drop-off site in Carroll County) which only has a rate of 32.8 pounds per person. Congratulations Carrollton!

The District's Solid Waste Plan was approved by the Ohio EPA on May 26, 2005. The new 15-year plan projects a total of 44 recycling sites and the continuation of the electronics, appliance, scrap metal, tire, and Christmas tree recycling programs. The District will work with businesses to increase recycling over the Plan period and anticipates meeting the EPA’s Access Goal of 90% resident access to recycling in each county by 2006. The Plan will be funded by the District’s contract fee with the Landfills and Transfer Facilities of $3.50 per ton.

Legislative funding cuts left the Division of Recycling & Litter Prevention with less than 40% of their original funding. Recycling & Litter Prevention (“RLP”) programs that are not located in a District with sufficient funding available to replace the grant funds have ceased operations effective December 31, 2005; some programs even earlier. Unfortunately, the Carroll, Columbiana, and Harrison County RLP programs were three of those programs. However, if funding should become available through other grant sources or additional revenue, we hope the programs can be reinstated.

These programs provided valuable services to the District. They educated the public about recycling, waste reduction, and litter prevention, as well as coordinated litter clean-ups, adopt-an-area programs, and provided resources and a presence in each county in the District.

In 2005 alone, the Carroll, Columbiana, and Harrison County RLP programs collected 92,205 pounds of litter, cleaned 523 miles of roads, and held 186 presentations which educated 4,514 individuals. Working with local schools, government offices, and local businesses led to recycling 99,760 pounds of material, thus diverting it from landfills. The loss of these programs and the years of experience of each of our Program Managers will have a tremendous impact on our counties. They will be sorely missed. The District would like to thank our Program Managers, Julie Grunder-Hykes, Cindy DePillo and Eric Matthews, and Lester Nabb for all your years of hard work and dedication to our Counties.