Grand Strand pushes recycling efforts

The Earth Day Network is asking everyone to "pledge an act of green" to celebrate Earth Day 2011 today.

Drunken Jack's restaurant in Murrells Inlet is ahead of the curve. About a year ago, its staff members voluntarily began a recycling program few other eateries along the Grand Strand have.

They set aside everything that can find a second, third or fourth life - not just cardboard and office paper, but glass, plastic and aluminum, too.

Recycling costs the company about 5 percent more than not recycling, said Somer Heise, the human resources manager who also heads up the restaurant's Green Team, and it's no more difficult than sending everything to the Horry County landfill.

In one year, the restaurant has turned over 50 tons of recyclables, and that's not counting office paper and cardboard, Heise said. It also recycles oyster shells, bread and other food items, using them to feed animals or returning them to the Earth. People visiting the restaurant's bar will even find recycled coasters for their drinks, with messages about recycling printed on them.

"It has been such a smart business move, we don't know why everyone doesn't do it," she said.

There are an estimated 6,000 restaurants and bars along the Grand Strand, and hundreds of hotels and resorts, which makes Heise's question a good one, especially on Earth Day, and especially in a place that depends so heavily on the preservation of its natural beauty for its biggest industry, tourism.

"It's probably a combination of reasons," said Esther Murphy, recycling supervisor for the Horry County Solid Waste Authority. "But people and businesses that really want to recycle probably find some means to do it."

Starting out

Carissa Moreno, reservations manager for the Compass Cove resort in Myrtle Beach, is heading her property's efforts to begin a program.

"Visitors expect to be able to recycle," she said. "They come here from places where recycling is normal, and they wonder why we don't have a program in place."

She's meeting with Murphy in the first week of May to decide where to place recycling bins - in some rooms or on every floor with recycling bags in the rooms.

She said it has been a few months since she started promoting the idea, and had to get approval from the owners and work through the details. She said customer surveys indicate people are anxious to start being able to recycle.

"They are very pleased that we're taking action and becoming more globally responsible," she said. "I'm just happy that people on vacation are still so concerned about recycling."

The program will save the property money, she said, because there will be no charge for picking up the recycling, only for leasing the bins. And it will cut down on the cost of garbage service.

"I'm hoping to reduce the garbage by half by the end of the year," she said. "Once I get it started here, I'd like to make sure all our properties are doing it. I think they just didn't realize how easy it really is."

Murphy said some businesses have expressed concerns about having room to store recyclables until they can be picked up, or not being able to use large Dumpsters, which are not permitted between Kings Highway and Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach.

But Heise said Fisher Recycling picks up comingled items from Drunken Jack's three times a week, which has cut back on the restaurant's need for garbage service.

Because the staff doesn't have to sort items, "it was seamless" to become a recycler.

Inspiring recycling

Drunken Jack's success prompted Sen. Ray Cleary, R-Murrells Inlet, to take another run at a glass, plastic and aluminum recycling bill aimed at getting all Alcoholic Beverage Commission permit holders to keep their empties away from the state's landfills. He filed an earlier version a couple years ago, but his current S461 is not languishing as the 2009 version did.

"Some businesses say: 'Why us? Why not make everyone do it?' But we have to start somewhere," Cleary said. "If we're going to start, let's start where the most material is, where it's easiest to get to, and where we can get it for the least amount of expense."

Mike Bessant, legislative affairs director for the SWA, said he and the rest of the agency fully support Cleary's bill, and he has been at subcommittee hearings in Columbia on the bill.

"I told the Senate we have the ability to handle all this recycling - bring it on," Bessant said.

Cleary said green industries are one of the fastest growing businesses in the country now, and there are people willing to build recycling facilities in South Carolina, as long as they are sure there will be enough material for them to work with.

Recycling facilities like the SWA's make money by finding markets for the items they take in, from glass and plastic to scrap metal and even cement from construction and demolition projects. The SWA uses money from recycling materials to help fund its recycling education programs in Horry County schools, where recycling also takes place, and in the community.

The state has said it would like to see 35 percent of all the material that goes into landfills be recycled. Last year, the SWA did about 27 percent, Bessant said. To reach the state's goal, the agency would have to recycle about 14,000 tons more a year.

But, he said, that isn't likely to happen without regulations.

Statewide mandatory recycling efforts have never flown before, but Bessant said the states that have the best results are the ones that have regulations in place, usually rules banning certain items from landfills.

Murphy said it's not so much that people don't know recycling is a good idea, but the easier recycling is made for people, the more likely they are to do it. Having 24 convenience centers around the county has enabled many people to drop off their recycling along with yard waste and other items their garbage haulers might not pick up.

Gregg Causey, owner of the UPS store in South Strand Commons, said he just moved back to the Grand Strand from North Carolina, where curbside pickup was available. He said it seemed many more people used that service.

"I live in a condo and there is nowhere for me to put my recycling," he said. "I know there are convenience centers, but a lot of people are not going to go out of their way to drop off recycling."

He said he feels strongly about reusing and recycling, and like all UPS stores, he reuses packing materials like peanuts and bubble wrap. Customers who bring their used packing materials to him get a $1-off-shipping coupon "to make it worth their while."

Perhaps ease is the biggest factor for most people. The SWA's six-month pilot curbside recycling program in Heritage Preserve on S.C. 90, which just ended at the beginning of April, showed that curbside recycling is a popular option, even for people who live within a few miles of the landfill and the materials recycling facility.

City programs

Jimmy Parker, Myrtle Beach's solid waste supervisor, said the city has been recycling in one form or another since 1994. Residents used to use the blue plastic bags to put out their recyclables, but in 2008, the city got a grant to subsidize the cost of 18-gallon bins and 48-gallon roll-out containers, and since then, recycling has been growing.

By the end of 2010, the city had given out or sold more than 5,500 bins and 2,000 roll-out containers.

"A lot of people got bins at first, and then realized they were doing such a good job recycling, they bought containers," Parker said. "They needed more room."

Last year, the city turned over 1,057 tons of recyclables to the SWA materials recycling facility. That's 2,114,000 pounds of recyclables that didn't go into the county landfill.

Parker said the amount of recycling increased when the city switched from bags to bins and containers because people used to have to sort recyclables and drag the bags to the curb. The bins and containers hold comingled items, and are easier to put out - more like the garbage containers people are used to.

North Myrtle Beach and Surfside Beach also have recycling programs, but unlike Myrtle Beach, those cities pick also up commercial recycling. Myrtle Beach doesn't pick up much commercial garbage, either - only at a few businesses that were grandfathered in.

But Parker said any businesses that want to recycle should contact him; he'll work out a way.

North Myrtle Beach spokesman Pat Dowling said 75 percent of the businesses in that city participate in recycling, including about 35 restaurants. John Adair, public works director for Surfside Beach, said his city gives roll-out containers to businesses and picks up their recycling for free because the city incurs no tipping fees for delivering the recyclables to the SWA facility. Currently, 1,200 homes and 80 to 100 businesses recycle. He said the city will supply recycling containers to bars and restaurants as requested.

"It's in our best interest - and that of the taxpayers - to recycle more and reduce trash," Adair said. "It's just that much longer the landfill will last."

On May 7, Adair is launching the first on-the-beach recycling program on the Grand Strand, putting recycling containers right next to garbage cans at beach ends. He has made arrangements for a city crew to use a refurbished Dumpster to pick up the recyclables, and for SWA to haul the materials away.

"I'm trying to be proactive and get the best result," he said. "I think most people want to recycle. If you have the cans right next to each other, people will."

He said all it took was buying lids for some garbage cans the city already had and marking them so people will know the difference.

"I think at least half the materials people have on the beach are recyclable," Adair said.

Filling the gap

Though not every waste hauler offers curbside recycling, some are filling that niche, Murphy said.

Tim Citrone's All Cycle hauling is one of those haulers.

"Some haulers don't want to do it," he said. "It's hard to make money at it unless you are selling it. I don't - I just dump mine at the SWA recycling facility. There's no tipping fee, but I still have to have trucks, and pay my staff and buy gas."

However, he said, if more people recycled, it would reduce his tipping fees for dumping garbage at the landfill, which would help him keep costs down.

Citrone said he decided to include recycling because it's a service that's in demand, and one not everyone provides.

But there's another reason he and most others who recycle do so:

"We're all called to be good stewards of the Earth God blessed us with," Citrone said. "Isn't it a shame when a can is only a can once and then ends up in the landfill?"