SWANA Sails into Baltimore

Michael Fickes

When you talk about the solid waste business in Baltimore, you're talking about two separate and entirely different operations.

Do you mean Baltimore city or county? You need to be specific.

Home of the Inner Harbor, Super Bowl Champions the Baltimore Ravens and site of WASTECON 2001, Baltimore city resides at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

Baltimore county, on the other hand, with its sprawling horse farms, agricultural heritage, nature preserves and growing business presence, encircles Baltimore city to the north, east and west. The Chesapeake Bay and Ann Arundel county lie to the south.

Each Baltimore is a distinct political entity. Consequently, each is responsible for its own set of public services, including solid waste removal, recycling and disposal.

City Solid Waste Operations

Baltimore city's government, headed by Mayor Martin O'Malley and a city council, handles the waste requirements of the city's 651,154 residents. City collection costs total approximately $32 million per year; property taxes foot the bill.

Functioning much like other major city solid waste operations, Baltimore's Bureau of Solid Waste of the Department of Public Works ensures that trash is picked up from 233,000 households and small businesses twice a week.

The city collects approximately 750 tons of solid waste and recyclables per day. Approximately 90 percent of this total comes from single-family homes, condominiums and apartments. The remaining 10 percent of the waste is from small businesses.

Private contractors handle the lion's share of commercial refuse, collecting trash once a week, and recyclables — alternating blue-bagged metals and plastic with paper every other week — the second collection day each week.

Handling this residential waste volume requires the services of 546 collection division employees, plus a city fleet of 130 packers and six front loaders traveling 409 routes per week, six days a week between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m.

An unusual feature of the city's collection operations involves the Inner Harbor and the streams that flow into the harbor from the north.

“The Inner Harbor attracts many tourists every year, and most of the attractions are right on the water,” says George Winfield, city public works director. “To keep the harbor clean, we've set up a marine unit.”

The marine operations uses two types of refuse collecting boats. Skimmers collect trash and debris from the surface of the water, with long skimmer arms connected to belts. Then crews of smaller romarine boats use nets to dip trash from the water.

The amount of water waste collected by this fleet varies with the season and the severity of the weather during the year. “On average, we probably collect 200 tons of debris from the harbor during the year,” says Joseph Kolodziejski, head of the department of public works bureau of solid waste.

Residential and commercial waste is disposed of at the Quarantine Road Landfill, which is expected to accommodate the city's disposal needs until 2019. Most of the refuse arriving at the landfill is ash from Baltimore Refuse Energy Systems Co. (BRESCO), a waste-to-energy (WTE) operation that burns refuse from the city and surrounding counties.

A convenience center at the landfill accepts residential vehicles, white goods, tires and recyclables.

Additionally, a leachate pond operation drains approximately 84,000 gallons per day from the landfill. Six city-owned tanker trailers haul the liquids to a nearby treatment plant.

Because the Maryland Recycling Act in 1988 mandated the city recycle 20 percent of its solid waste, the city transfer station and a second convenience center located in the northwestern section of the city are key to city solid waste operations.

Curbside recycling collection programs were established in 1989. Today, this operation delivers about 1,300 tons of mixed paper and 350 tons of commingled bottles, cans and plastics to private recycling contractors every month. The city boasts it reached a 30 percent recycling rate in 1998.

The city also provides several collection programs that are popular with residents. For example, leaf removal services are available in the fall. “We collect trash twice a week, and on the second collection day, we'll remove leaves,” Kolodziejski says.

Bulk collection also is available by appointment. To schedule a pickup, residents simply call the department to arrange a pickup time, then a collection truck arrives at the appointed time and place to pickup furniture and appliances.

“We also have five drop-off locations around the city where residents can dispose of anything they want, Monday through Saturday,” Kolodziejski says.

Another popular city program, the Mayor's Community Pitch In Program, encourages resident to keep their neighborhoods clean. “From April through October, residents can call us about a neighborhood clean-up effort,” Kolodziejski adds. “We'll provide rakes, shovels and other tools as well as city-owned roll-offs to dispose of the collected debris.”

Concerned with keeping the city neat and clean, the city's Sanitation Enforcement Program, which has been operating since 1997, recently was assigned to the solid waste department. “We have 25 enforcement officers,” Kolodziejski says. “They patrol the city and issue citations.”

As part of this program, solid waste officials can issue citations to residents and businesses that violate city sanitary codes, such as high grass, weeds in the yard, failing to provide proper trash receptacles and illegal dumping. Officers currently issue about 128 citations per day. Since 1997, the program has assessed $756,420 in fines.

Baltimore County's Solid Waste Operations

Similar to Baltimore city, Baltimore county has more responsibility than the norm. In Maryland, county governments are much stronger than usual because few towns and cities are incorporated and county executives must handle local government executive responsibilities.

“We act just like a municipality of about 750,000 people,” says Stephen G. Lippy, refuse disposal division chief of the county's Bureau of Solid Waste Management, Towson, Md., and co-chair of the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) WASTECON 2001 Local Committee.

Essentially, the county's government serves as the local government for its 754,292 citizens, just 100,000 more residents than the city, says C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger, Baltimore county executive. But the city only encompasses 80 square miles, compared to the county's 640 square miles.

Thus, the county's geographic size dictates a different and more flexible approach to solid waste management.

The county itself does not maintain collection operations. Instead, the county executive assigns small collection companies, usually family owned, to different areas.

“We have 49 entrepreneurs, all small private companies, that collect residential refuse,” says Charles Weiss, the county's bureau chief of solid waste management.

Gerber's Trash Removal, for example, has collected residential, as well as commercial refuse, for more than 50 years in several suburbs in the northern part of Baltimore county.

Forty-eight other similar companies provide collection services for the county's 300,000 households, including single-family homes, condominiums and apartments.

Although collection is contracted out, the county manages collection operations closely. Contractors must provide one refuse pickup and one recyclables pickup per week. About two-thirds of county households also receive bi-weekly yard waste collections between April and December. Additionally, county employees, using a geographic information system (GIS), monitor pickups and numbers of households.

“We periodically drive each of the collection routes to verify the numbers of units, including new construction,” Weiss says.

In addition to collection, the county pays for a number of special programs throughout the year. One of the most popular is the Community Clean-up program, in which the county covers the cost of roll-offs supplied by con-tractors. Refuse collected under this program goes to the county landfill, where the tipping fee is waived.

The county also oversees, but does not physically handle, refuse and recyclables disposal at five facilities: