Recycling deal between Charleston County, Horry County may be revived Tuesday

A contract that would send Charleston County’s bottles and cans to Horry County’s recycling facility may not be scrapped after all.

Despite failing to generate enough support from Horry County Council members two weeks ago, local officials say the proposed agreement between the Lowcountry county and the local Solid Waste Authority will likely resurface Tuesday.

“It’s a good possibility,” Horry County Council Chairman Mark Lazarus said. “Reconsideration is always an option.”

At issue is a contract that the Solid Waste Authority recently signed with Charleston County before receiving approval from Horry County Council. The council approves the authority’s budget and any change in the SWA’s spending plan must receive the blessing of Horry County leaders.

Some council members were upset that the authority came to them after the fact, and they also expressed frustration with the hasty nature of the process.

“I don’t see a problem with the contract,” said Horry County Councilman Johnny Vaught, one of the leaders who voted against the deal. “I just don’t like the way they went at it.”

An issue of timing

Charleston County officials initially reached out to the authority because they were ending their relationship with Sonoco, a company that had been processing their recyclables, including cardboard, glass, plastics and paper. Officials there said they needed time to build a new recycling facility and the old center Charleston County owned couldn’t handle the volume of materials.

Under the pending contract, Horry County would accept Charleston County’s recyclables, process and bale them at a local recycling facility and then send them to a factory that would convert the waste into something useable, such as carpet made from old soda bottles.

Solid Waste Authority officials have said their agency’s staff first learned about Charleston County’s needs on May 28, but the SWA board didn’t authorize the group’s executive director to negotiate a contract until a special called meeting on July 21.

Charleston County’s contract with Sonoco ended on July 31.

“I don’t feel like the Solid Waste Authority has been clear with us,” Vaught said. “I don’t think they’ve processed this contract in an above-board fashion as far as the council’s concerned.”

Other Horry County Council members voiced similar concerns during their Sept. 1 meeting when the move to approve the authority’s budget change — i.e. the contract — was shot down.

Recycling the contract

When a council vote on an ordinance fails, the proposal typically dies. But there’s a procedural option that would allow the panel to take up the matter again Tuesday.

Here’s how the process would work: For the contract to come back up for discussion, one of the councilmen who voted against the deal last time would have to ask their peers to reconsider the topic before the minutes of the last meeting are approved. For the contract to be accepted, the measure needs a “supermajority” or nine members of county council to vote for it. Two weeks ago, the vote was 7-4.

But have any of the four changed their minds?

“My options are still open all the way up until the minutes are read,” Vaught said. “I’m not against trying to think of a solution to this thing or work this thing out, but I’m not going to commit to reopening the issue until the last minute.”

Along with Vaught, councilmen Jody Prince, Al Allen and Cam Crawford voted against the contract two weeks ago.

Allen and Crawford could not be reached for comment. Prince said he’s still uneasy about the agreement.

“At this point,” he said, “my concerns have not been alleviated.”

Prince said he’s worried because not all of the items people place in their recycling containers are actually recyclable, and the extra material must go into Horry County’s landfill, taking up already limited space.

“I have concerns about waste coming in,” he said, “and nothing going out.”

Solid Waste Authority leaders have said those non-recyclable items would reduce the landfill’s lifespan by about three days per year.

Lance Thompson, who chairs the authority’s board, said he’s pleased council members are talking about revisiting the contract. He plans to be at Tuesday night’s meeting to answer any questions.

“We were hoping it would be reconsidered,” he said. “We still do think it’s a win-win and something that’s very good for Horry County.”

SWA leaders insist the Charleston County contract could be a financial boon to the authority, which grappled with budget woes earlier this year.

At one point, the authority discussed increasing garbage fees in Horry because it anticipated a $600,000 revenue decrease in recyclable sales revenue. That’s because market prices for items such as scrap metal, paper, cardboard have dropped due to an over-saturated market.

Authority leaders have also said a council decision last year to allow some construction waste to be hauled to landfills outside Horry has lightened their coffers.

“It was a substantial amount,” Thompson said of the revenue lost because of that policy change.

Authority officials contend the Charleston County deal would bring in needed money. They estimate that Horry County could receive 72,000 tons of Charleston County recyclables throughout the next two years, netting an anticipated $70,000 per month.

Although the deal is still up in the air, the Solid Waste Authority has continued processing Charleston County’s recyclables, which the SWA has been accepting for weeks. After the Sept. 1 vote, Thompson said the SWA notified Charleston County that the agency would officially terminate the contract in 60 days unless council members changed their minds.

“We went ahead and started the clock rolling on that,” he said. “We needed to make them aware of it.”

Hiccups aside, Charleston County officials still want to see the contract approved.

“Certainly, we hope to keep the partnership going,” said Charleston County Councilwoman Colleen Condon, who chairs that council’s Recycling and Solid Waste Committee.

Moving forward

Despite the potential benefits, the way the situation was handled has annoyed some Horry County Council members.

Lazarus, the council chairman, has acknowledged the authority didn’t handle the process well, but he hopes the contract snafu will be a turning point in dealings between the trash collection agency and the public body that controls its purse strings.

“It’ll bring us a stronger and better working relationship with the Solid Waste Authority and their board,” he said.

Vaught added that authority leaders need to be more open about their operations.

“It’s happened many times before on other issues,” he said. “It was just time to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘You guys have got to function in a more transparent way with council.’”

That message, Thompson said, has been received.

“We know that we work under the authority of Horry County Council,” he said. “We’re certainly going to try to do a better job of communicating and making sure that they’re aware and apprised of everything we do. ... We got kind of caught up in a time crunch. It’s our fault. We should have done a better job of communication, but we were trying to get to the point where we could do something that we felt like was workable for us and for Charleston County.”

This story was originally published September 14, 2015 at 3:10 PM with the headline "Recycling deal between Charleston County, Horry County may be revived Tuesday."