Waste Disposal

Before commissioners Donald I. Dell and Elmer C. Lippy forg ahead in their efforts to create a waste-to-energy incinerator in Carroll County, they should wait until the county finishes updating its current solid-waste management plan. Without a longer-range plan that specifies the most cost-efficient and least environmentally harmful means of disposing of the county's burgeoning solid waste, there is no way to know if this plant is the best solution to the county's garbage problems.At present, the county's solid waste disposal plan consists of two landfills and a voluntary recycling program that began five months ago. By any measure, this program is inadequate.

Coming early next month will be a chance for Harford County residents to get rid of certain hazardous household products that they may not have figured out how to get rid of safely. On Saturday, May 4, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Local Emergency Planning Committee, in cooperation with Harford County Office of Recycling, is offering Harford County residents the opportunity to safely dispose of their household hazardous waste products, such as oil-based paints, cleaning products, bleach, pool chemicals, herbicides, pesticides and mercury thermometers.

Construction magnate Willard Hackerman is making Baltimore an offer that seems too good to refuse.He wants to tear down his polluting trash incinerator on Pulaski Highway and replace it with a larger, "state of the art" garbage burner that he says would solve the waste disposal headaches of the entire metropolitan area."

WESTMINSTER - The Board of County Commissioners will host a forum this week on the county's solid waste disposal needs. The forum will be held at Carroll Community College, Building K, room 100, 1601 Washington Road, Westminster, on Tuesday, Feb. 28, beginning at 7 p.m. Residents are invited to attend. The forum will include an overview of current services and demands, as well as future projected needs and options for handling those needs. The commissioners said that although incineration and waste-to-energy will be discussed as options for waste disposal, arrangements made by the prior Board of County Commissioners will not be discussed.

Carroll's commissioners pledged Thursday not to shelve a citizens group's study that concluded the county should forget about building an incinerator.But the county's governing board does not have a timetable for a decision on how Carroll should dispose of its solid waste. The 15 to 18 active members of the waste-to-energy committee recommended that the commissioners find ways to increase recycling, which would extend the life of county landfills, and build a waste composting facility to convert up to 70 percent of the trash into compost.

Howard County's waste disposal plan, which the County Council approved this month, isn't exactly marching orders to solve the county's garbage problems into the next century. Rather, it is a broad outline of possibilities the county can pursue, each heavily dependent on the other.The plan assumes that at some point, not made clear in the document, people will either want to or be forced to deal with the mounting waste dilemma. This may be the most formidable obstacle of all; the traditional methods of waste disposal -- landfills and incineration -- have been found wanting, yet public opinion hasn't embraced any of the available options that lie ahead.

Westminster Common Council has awarded the city's trash-collection contract for the next five years to York Waste Disposal Inc., the low bidder.The cost is about 11 percent lower than the city pays now, Thomas B. Beyard, director of planning and public works, told the council before the unanimous vote.Councilman Stephen R. Chapin Sr. recommended the contract after visiting York Waste Disposal's operations -- "tripping through the trash.""I was impressed," he said. "I'm sort of a nuts-and-bolts kind of guy. I've got to see it."

James Pittman, a former deputy director of waste management for the Maryland Department of the Environment, has been hired to oversee the county's trash collection and landfills.Mr. Pittman, who begins work today, will become the deputy director of operations for waste management services in the Department of Public Works. He replaces John Zohlen, who resigned for personal reasons in July.Mr. Pittman worked for the MDE for six years. He holds a master of science degree in environmental engineering and has concentrated in the field of waste management throughout his career.

Anyone looking for a quick solution to the proposed Annapolis landfill expansion will not find it in a long-awaited consultant's report released to city and county officials this week.County and city leaders who met for three hours Wednesday to study the report were not satisfied with the accuracy of figures used to estimate the long-termfinancial impact of various alternatives to Annapolis' waste problems, said Walter Chitwood, assistant to the county executive."There were some areas where the consultant had not understood financial plans, or where the city's thinking had changed and the information was not current," said Chitwood, who refused to discuss details.

When the owners of the Pulaski Highway incinerator in East Baltimore recently hinted they might replace the old plant with an updated facility that could serve much of the metropolitan area, they offered an encouraging sign that a regional approach to solid-waste disposal might actually stand a chance of becoming a reality.Since at least the early 1980s, top officials of the metro jurisdictions -- Baltimore City and Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties -- have discussed taking just such an approach.

Editor: A huge thank you to Marissa Gallo for her prompt account of the Joppa/Joppatowne Community Council meeting of Feb. 6, at Joppatowne High School: "Joppa ready to take on county council at March meeting. " One major correction: David Craig, county executive, has not answered any of our questions. If she had added exclamation points to some of her statements, you would have felt the ire of the residents of Joppa and Joppatowne who, for two months in a row, have waited for representatives from his office to explain the waste transfer station debacle!

Baltimore officials are considering ways to continue to offer household hazardous waste collection after some people waited in their idling cars for more than an hour to drop off items such as oil-based paint, antifreeze and oven cleaner on Saturday. About 1,800 vehicles passed through the collection site at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute within six hours, according to the city Department of Public Works — three times the highest level from previous events. The DPW used to offer two-day hazardous waste collection events twice a year, but held none last year.

Medical waste disposal company Daniels Sharpsmart Inc. said Friday it has opened a facility in East Baltimore. The facility, which became fully operational this month, will serve hospitals, clinics, medical and dental offices in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Delaware and Pennsylvania from the plant. The company said in a release that it was attracted to the area in part because of the quality of the region's hospitals. The company is known for its Sharpsmart system which allows for the safe disposal of needles and other sharp objects.

The owner of the steel plant at Sparrows Point has moved to create an industrial-waste landfill on the contaminated Baltimore County peninsula, even as the company takes long-awaited first steps to clean up toxic waste seeping into the outer harbor and tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. Severstal North America applied last week to the Maryland Department of the Environment to develop a 60-acre landfill adjacent to one of two old waste-disposal mounds...

"Gotta have it" is the overriding thought in many American minds when it comes to the latest wireless gizmo, video game or computer operating system. However, our attention becomes very fickle as soon as the next upgrade is available. We then easily discard the technology we formerly were obsessed with, barely thinking of where it will find its resting place or how it will affect others with whom we share this world. But electronic waste, also known as e-waste, has become something we can no longer ignore.

A panel of experts, assembled in part by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is recommending that the United States ban the routine use of antibiotics in farm animal feed. The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production also proposes better tracking of diseases among farm animals, to help prevent the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to humans. "We've got too many animals too close together producing too much waste without any realistic way of handling the waste," said John Carlin, a farmer and former Kansas governor who chairs the commission.

WASHINGTON -- Saying her agency "has not done its job over the past 12 years, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner promised sweeping changes yesterday to protect public health and the environment from harm by hazardous waste incineration.As expected, Ms. Browner announced that the EPA will spend the next 18 months assuring that incinerators and industrial boilers operating under interim federal approval are performing safely before considering proposals to add capacity."

The Baltimore metropolitan area generates about 3 million tons of solid waste each year. Roughly half of it goes into landfills. At that rate, more than 80 percent of the existing landfill capacity in the region will be depleted within 15 years. Carroll's two dumps would fill up around 2007.Few would argue that the landfill situation has reached a crisis point -- yet. Local elected leaders nonetheless have seemed content to coast on well-meaning words until a calamity looms.For more than a decade, top officials of the metropolitan jurisdictions -- Baltimore City and Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties -- have discussed taking a regional approach to waste disposal.

For too long, the poultry industry in this state has wielded economic and political clout to escape responsibility for its primary role in the slow, steady poisoning of the Chesapeake Bay. As reported this week by The Sun's Tom Pelton, a voluntary program for disposing of the 1 billion pounds of manure produced each year on the Eastern Shore's factory-like chicken farms simply hasn't worked. Nitrogen from the waste still flows into the bay and its tributaries at twice the rate allowed by state standards.

Baltimore residents can get rid of hazardous waste this weekend at the Polytechnic Institute parking lot. The drop-off will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Residents can get rid of items including bleach, pesticides, herbicides, car and household batteries, propane tanks, drain cleaner, gasoline and pool chemicals. Polytechnic Institute is at 1400 W. Cold Spring Lane. Proof of city residency, which could be a driver's license or telephone or tax bill, is required.