THE SOLID WASTE DILEMMA

I attended the City Council Briefing on Friday, July 24, dealing with solid waste at the White Street facility. The briefing was not what I had expected, but it was very informative.

It turned out that the briefing consisted of a proposal by a private start-up company for the City to form a partnership with the company to build and operate a plasma gasification facility at the White Street location. The proposed plasma gasification plant would use both current solid waste collections and waste that is already in the land fill as the input to the process that converts the waste into gas that can be sold as an energy supply to companies or used by the city to meet its own energy needs.

The presentation was very informative concerning one possible way for the City to solve its solid waste problem. The problem with the presentation was that it outlined only one approach to solving the solid waste problem and gave only a single possible company for the city to partner with. As Council member Perkins pointed out, the City probably needs to hire a consultant to look at all possible solutions, give the City the benefits and drawbacks of each, as well as the costs and savings associated with each. This approach would allow the City to choose the best alternative and then request that competing companies prepare proposals for a partnership, or other arrangement with the City.

I'm glad that I attended the briefing. I knew before I went that the City had a problem with handling solid waste. I recognized that solving that problem must be a priority for the City Council in the next year. I am now committed to an immediate plan of action. The City must hire a consultant immediately and charge him/her with identifying the possible solutions to our solid waste problem, along with the costs, difficulties, payoffs, and benefits of each one, and report the findings to Council by July 31, 2010. At that time, I will push City Council to choose the best solution for Greensboro and call for proposals from companies to implement the planned solution. Once the proposals are in, we must choose a provider and get the process started as soon as possible.

I believe that this is an area where Greensboro can lead the state, if not the nation, in solving a problem that has been plaguing virtually all cities for a number of years.

I welcome your comments.

See my web site at http://www.boyettforcitycouncil.com/.