$22 million recycling plant plan: officials worry Chittenden voters don’t care

Workers at the Chittenden Solid Waste District's recyclables processing facility sort through material. Courtesy Chittenden Solid Waste District.

WILLISTON — Chittenden Solid Waste District officials worry the public doesn’t seem to care about a proposed $22 million bond for a new recycling sorting facility they say is crucial to meeting the county’s needs.

“We held a number of public forums, and we intended on holding more but decided based on sparse attendance that people just don’t care about the topic,” said Jen Holliday, the district’s director of public policy and communications.

Only four people who weren’t district employees attended a Nov. 1 public hearing in Williston on the proposal — all of them remotely via Zoom — in a last-minute effort by officials to tell Chittenden County voters about the $22 million question they’ll see at the voting booth.

The current facility on Avenue C — the only publicly owned material recovery facility in Vermont — processed more than 48,000 tons of material last fiscal year, most of which brought in about $3.4 million in revenue. It’s almost 30 years old and relies on technology the district says is outdated. District leaders say the facility isn’t big or efficient enough to keep up with Chittenden County’s growing needs. It is processing almost double the amount of material it was designed to handle when it opened in 1993.

The new facility, planned for property on Redmond Road, would increase processing capacity by 40% while also improving conditions for workers, district spokesperson Michele Morris said at the Nov. 1 hearing.

Morris said that improved conditions are especially important because the district is struggling to recruit and retain staff at the current facility. New sorting equipment would make the process more efficient and reduce reliance on hand-sorting, she said, and the new project would increase the facility’s ability to handle the growing diversity of products and packaging in the county.

Despite a promotional campaign since the summer to tell residents why the bond matters so much, district officials have seen few people attend forums to hear about the proposal.

“Bottom line, the public just isn’t that interested,” said Holliday. “Or they’re interested, but not enough to come to meetings.”

She and other district leaders have expressed disappointment in the level of public engagement, but they’re hoping the sparse attendance is a good sign.

If people were upset with the proposal, they would show up, she reasons.

The district calls the plant a material recovery facility — where blue-bin recyclables are sorted and processed to be resold and made into new products. Casella Waste Systems currently operates the facility on a contract. Morris emphasized that the recyclables processed at the facility are only marketed in the U.S. and Canada, not overseas.

District officials have assured the public that the bond will not fall on taxpayers and that it will be paid back through the facility’s revenues instead. Some of those revenues come from haulers who drop off material.

The district charges haulers that bring recycling to the facility $80 per ton — what’s commonly called a tipping fee — which the district plans to keep constant over the next 10 years, Morris said. But it’s the haulers, not the district, who ultimately decide what to charge residents. It’s possible prices will increase over time, even if the district keeps constant.

“We have kept our tip fee very steady,” said Morris. “We don't change it depending on the market. Private (material recovery facilities) change sometimes from month-to-month, or even more. But we don't do that because we are trying to keep things steady for the public and for the hauler.”

Morris said the majority of the public comments the district has received online and in previous hearings has been positive toward the plan. 

Because of changes in Vermont’s election laws, the bond issue could not be included on the general election ballot, and the district couldn’t mail its own ballot to voters. Chittenden County residents can either vote in person on Election Day, request a mail-in ballot online or request and pick up a ballot from their town clerk’s or city manager’s office. 

“What we really advocate and have programs and facilities for is waste prevention and reduction, first and foremost,” Morris said. “Reduce, reuse. But that third R, recycling, is still a critical component of the system. There's always going to be material out there that we should keep out of the landfill and we should be doing it in the most efficient and effective way we can.”