Before they go in front of the Kanawha County Commission next week, members of the county's Solid Waste Authority hope to find out more about their financial situation from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Authority members want to know if they can use money from a DEP grant to buy a new building. The grant was for new equipment, but if the authority can buy the building, it won't need some of the equipment.
The Solid Waste Authority has found a building that is move-in ready. It's located close to their current location and the seller hasn't put the building on the market officially, thinking that the space might be shared while the seller finds a new location. It has not released information about the seller or the location.
If the Solid Waste Authority is allowed to move into the new space, it would be able to save money by no longer using Waste Management to transport its materials and no longer having to pay a processing fee to WV Cashin in Nitro.
Moving into that space, however, would depend on getting Charleston and South Charleston involved. Currently, the two largest cities in Kanawha County transport their recyclables to Beckley to be processed. That has allowed Charleston to use a single-stream recycling system, meaning that all recyclables are put in the same bin. If Charleston were to bring its recyclables to Kanawha County, while it would save money on transportation, it would have to either move away from single-stream or swallow some of the cost.
"Single-stream is definitely a lot more expensive on our end and that's what we've got to sit down and discuss," said James Young, executive director of the Solid Waste Authority. "We can no longer handle the total cost of recycling, if it's single-stream, dual-stream or whatever."
Part of the reason the Solid Waste Authority can't handle the cost of recycling is the current market. The Solid Waste Authority generated only $231 in recycling revenue in December, down from the $608 they received in November.
Beckley can afford to process a single-stream system because they supplement their recycling center with money from a landfill but the Solid Waste Authority doesn't have that kind of support, Young said.
"The more difficult it is on our end, the cost increases and that needs to be shared in some way," Young said.
The Solid Waste Authority hopes to reallocate the grant money so that it can get a processing facility up and running as soon as possible to minimize its losses. While the Solid Waste Authority is able to pay its bills for January, it only has around $3,800 left over for the next month.
If the DEP doesn't allow the Solid Waste Authority to use the grant money, the authority could still go through the loan process with the Solid Waste board, but it would take much longer to get the operation up and running. That could potentially require the Solid Waste Authority shutting down its drop site to save money until it gets a building operating.
Solid Waste Authority officials hope to meet with DEP before they go in front of the Kanawha County Commission on Jan. 28.
Reach Daniel Desrochers at dan.desrochers@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4886 or follow @drdesrochers on Twitter.