Without any stops at recycling centers, trash goes straight from your garbage can to the landfill where recyclables take up valuable space - space that has its limits.
And although the ride to the landfill is short, once it reaches the landfill, the life of the trash that winds up there is long, according to Lisa Sebek, director of solid waste services, emphasizing the benefits of recycling.
“A misconception is that garbage that goes to the landfill will biodegrade,” she said. “That’s not the case any more.”
She said that because of environmental regulations, the garbage sent to landfills everyday is compacted and covered daily.
“When it goes to the landfill it’s immediately compacted, then covered up,” she said. “It’s not getting any oxygen, light or anything of that nature.”
She contrasted that to a sheet of newsprint laying on the ground that’s been exposed to sunlight and weather and has become brittle, yellowed and on its way to decomposing.
“Twenty years from now you can go to the landfill and dig up today’s trash and still be able to read the Temple Daily Telegram,” she said.
Bruce Butscher, director of public works, agreed that landfill procedures preserve garbage rather than letting it decompose.
“Landfill regulations basically encapsulate the trash forever by not … letting rainwater run through,” he said.
“If it does, you have to capture the rainwater and treat it just like it was wastewater,” he said. “At the end of the day you have to cover over everything you put in the landfill … and that’s the last time that stuff will ever see sunlight.”
Ms. Sebek said that for those wanting to help out and recycle, there are things they can do, including voluntary recycling and making wise decisions when it comes to what you buy.
She suggested setting up a system of recycling cans at home, then making weekly or monthly trips to recycling centers.
For those who want to set up home recycling, the city offers two drop off locations:
n3015 Bullseye Lane
n602 Jack Baskin Drive
The centers are for aluminum cans, clear and brown glass, newspapers, magazines, white office paper, No. 1 and No. 2 clear plastics and corrugated cardboard.
She said that people who want to get serious about recycling need to think about making changes in everyday thinking to be successful.
“When people think about their trash - they put it in the trash can and it goes away,” she said. “But you can do some things to reduce, reuse and recycle and a lot of it comes into play when you first go to the store to buy something.”
This involves looking at packaging for signs of waste at the source, she said.
“Are you going to go in to the grocery store and buy several apples and put them in a bag, or are you going to buy them all wrapped in cellophane with a big bow in it just because it looks really nice?” she asked.
She added that the same wasteful packaging can be found in many other items, such as antiperspirants, which often come wrapped in boxes and cellophane.
“You can do little things like that to reduce the waste before you get it to the house,” she said.
Butscher said that little things, such as bagging trash, help more than people might realize.
“Probably about 50 percent of people don’t bag their trash before it goes outside,” he said.
This contributes to trash blowing out on a windy day. Bagging trash is not required by the city.
Recycling will become more important in the coming years, as city officials have said expansion of the city’s landfill is likely inevitable.
According to figures from Waste Management, which runs Temple’s landfill, the city’s 169-acre permitted landfill has about 108 acres that can be used for waste disposal.
It takes in trash from the city, and on a regional basis.
Since 2003, about 48 percent of trash has come from Temple, 45 percent from Bell County outside of Temple, 5 percent from the Central Texas Council of Governments seven-county area and 2 percent from outside that area.
Taking in about 260,000 tons of waste per year, the landfill has about a 21-year life, factoring in a 3 percent annual growth of the city and other users, according to Waste Management.
Their figures show that each Texan is responsible for 7.5 pounds of trash each day. In 2007, Bell County will generate 2.4 million pounds of trash per day.
Butscher said that studies are already under way about expanding the landfill. Even though 21 years seems like a long time, getting landfills permitted is not a quick process, he noted.
“The number of landfills in the state has declined markedly in the last 10 to 15 years,” he said. “Getting a new landfill site permitted, in many cases, can be 20 years, if ever.”
He said the city is in a good position with a landfill in use that could simply be expanded, without having to find a new site, which could add 30 to 40 years to the life of the city landfill.
“Having a site that’s already a landfill that’s permitted and having it in a place where it’s prone to be expanded, it just makes good sense (to expand it),” he said.
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