Going green for more green

Cardboard is a hot commodity for the Village of Malverne. Well, discarded cardboard.

The Board of Trustees has decided to start collecting cardboard for recycling after recognizing that it could reap a number of benefits doing so.

“We’re trying to accomplish two things,” Trustee Joe Hennessy said, “... save money on dumping of garbage and taking that and reinvesting it into equipment without additional cost to the residents.”

That recycling cardboard is a benefit to the environment is a definite bonus, Hennessy added. What’s more, cardboard can be sold on the open market and actually bring some sort of profit to the village, according to the trustee.

Every ton of garbage transferred from the waste stream to recycling saves the village about $70, Hennessy recently told the Herald. As determined in a five-year contract signed with Omni Recycling of Babylon in October 2009, Malverne and six other villages, including Rockville Centre and East Rockaway, pay $69.75 a ton to dump garbage, $50 a ton to dump yard waste and $12 a ton to dump recycling.

Recycling more trash will cost the village less to dump, especially now that the cost of disposal is expected to increase slightly. Hennessy said he anticipates the price will go up to about $71 a ton because the consumer price index is on the rise. Additionally, Omni will pay the village a certain amount based on market value per ton of cardboard it dumps.

“If the market [value] was ninety dollars — say we get eighty and save seventy, we got a turn around of a hundred and fifty dollars a ton,” Hennessy said. “That’s why it’s important we do this for the village finances as well as the environment.”

Last year, the village spent about $400,000 on garbage dumping alone. It disposed of 5,085 tons of garbage, 491 tons of yard waste, 336 tons of newspaper and 406 tons of bottles, cans and plastic materials. Once the new recycling plan is implemented in April, Hennessy said he expects that expense to decrease.

The dumping costs will drop further starting in May, when the village’s commercial properties will begin recycling. Currently, local businesses do not recycle at all. The village, Hennessy said, will supply the businesses with receptacles for disposal of recyclables, and redirect many tons of trash from one waste stream to another, less expensive stream.

“Nordon Drugs, for example,” Hennessy said. “Thirty-five percent of their garbage is cardboard because of deliveries for the store. So, all of that comes out [of the waste stream], so we don’t know what the exact figure’s going to be, but we know it should be meaningful.”

In effect, Hennessy said, this plan and its resulting savings will lower the cost of operations for the Department of Public Works and allow the village to purchase new equipment, some of which received a good beating from this winter’s storms.

Mayor Patricia McDonald said she is excited about the plan. “We kid around with him and call him the garbage man,” she said of Hennessy. “He’s been very determined to explore so many different areas in regards to refuse. The contract that we have now with Omni has saved the village quite a bit of money, and he always looks for ways, especially with garbage and recycling, to get what’s best for the village.”

Doug DeNardo, of Nordon Drugs, said the board’s plan is a good idea. As long as he is provided receptacles for dumping cardboard, he said he sees no inconvenience or problem in recycling. Meanwhile, Henry Stampfel, president of the Malverne Merchants and Professional Association and owner of the Malverne Cinema, said he’s “all for it” and has a plan in place to accommodate the changes.

“The plastics are a bit more difficult to facilitate, but we will do the very best we can,” Stampfel said. “I believe it is the responsibility of every merchant to help make this program a success.”