A Howard County trash-financing panel has recommended that the county begin charging residents for each bag of trash collected -- setting the stage for Howard to become the first county in the state to follow the latest national trend in reducing waste.
In a report delivered Friday to Howard County Executive Charles I. Ecker, the county's Solid Waste Funding Assessment Board recommends that the county charge each county household $100 a year, beginning in July, for once-a-week trash pickup.
As of January 1997, the report recommends, the county should pick up only a single 30-gallon bag per week for the $100 annual fee and begin charging $1.50 for each additional 30-gallon bag or 75 cents for each 13-gallon "kitchen can" bag.
Howard residents who don't get curbside trash pickup, such as apartment dwellers, would be charged a flat annual fee of $85 for any amount of trash.
The county would sell stickers at retail stores and government offices to put on trash bags as proof of payment, according to the panel's proposal.
Howard would not charge for picking up residents' trash under its recycling program, and the county's goal in inaugurating trash fees would be to increase recycling.
"It's a good report and I like the concept, particularly the incentive to get people to recycle," Mr. Ecker said after receiving the report in a closed-door meeting with members of the trash board.
County homes and businesses divert about 30 percent of their waste into county government and private recycling programs. State law requires 20 percent, and Mr. Ecker said Howard is capable of a 50 percent recycling rate.
The trash-financing board -- whose members come from business, government, activists representing landfill neighbors and a county taxpayer advocacy group -- was unanimous in its recommendations, said Chairman Jack Hollerbach. Mr. Ecker and the board plan to announce the report's recommendations at a news conference Tuesday morning.
The main problem faced by the board was how the county can meet its skyrocketing trash costs. The report says that between this fiscal year and 2005, the county's annual waste-management costs will rise from $8.6 million to $25.7 million.
Most of that $17 million increase will come from the cost of shipping the county's trash out of the region, which is to begin in January 1997.
