Tag Archives: solid waste facilities

How to implement trash, health, and safety?

Disposal of solid waste (trash/garbage) is a matter of community public health and safety and providing such service is the responsibilty of the local governing bodies. How should trash health and safety responsibly be implemented?

We cannot be left in a situation where residents are either “forced to buy” service from a provider, or have no option but to burn their trash. The government can levy a tax, but they cannot say that residents are forbidden to buy a service from an independent provider.

Such a ruling is

  • unfriendly to those who currently own, or want to start a waste collection business in our county,
  • unfriendly to the residents who are counting on the government to follow the state-legislated goals to
    “protect the health safety, and well-being of its citizens and to protect and enhance the quality of its environment” ,
  • unfriendly to the environment as trash ends up on the side of the road or polluting the air by being burned and leaves us to face a new problem on a different day.

Residents in the unincorporated areas of the county who want curb side collection, for the most part, already purchase it. Those of us using the collection centers do so because it is our preference.

The county should (in my opinion) create a special tax district for waste disposal (it already makes special lighting districts) and tax the residents for the maintenance of the collection centers.

-gretchen

Who implements trash, health, and safety?

As we’ve seen, solid waste is a matter of public health, safety, well-being, and the environment, according to Georgia state law. Whose responsibility is it to protect the environment and the public health, safety, and well-being from solid waste?

Many health and safety issues are handled through the health department, Diagram of the waste hierarchy including the Georgia Department of Public Health, and the South Health District (Ben Hill, Berrien, Brooks, Cook, Echols, Irwin, Lanier, Lowndes, Tift and Turner Counties). Particularly, water quality (septic tanks, well water), food safety, cleanliness of hotels, motels, restaurants, swimming pools and so on are the responsibility of the local health department, such as the Lowndes County Health Department.

However, disposal of solid waste (trash/garbage) is handled by the local municipality or governmental body (county).

The EPA has a variety of documents available about solid waste.

So does the state EPD, as enabled through Georgia Legislation: Existing Rules and Corresponding Laws.

So, where does this leave us? See next post.

-gretchen

Trash, health, and safety

Solid waste is a health and safety issue, according to Georgia law.

According to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources copy of the GEORGIA COMPREHENSIVE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT OF 1990 AS AMENDED THROUGH 2004,

O.C.G.A. ยง 12-8-21. Declaration of policy; legislative intent

a) It is declared to be the policy of the State of Georgia, in furtherance of its responsibility to protect the public health, safety, and well-being of its citizens and to protect and enhance the quality of its environment, to institute and maintain a comprehensive state-wide program for solid waste management and to prevent and abate litter, so as to assure that solid waste does not adversely affect the health, safety, and well-being of the public and that solid waste facilities, whether publicly or privately owned, do not degrade the quality of the environment by reason of their location, design, method of operation, or other means and which, to the extent feasible and practical, makes maximum utilization of the resources contained in solid waste.

Emphasis added on the parts about health, safety, well-being, and the environment. Those are the goals of this legislation, stated twice in the first paragraph. Georgia being a home rule state, the implementation of these goals is now left to the local governing bodies. More on that next.

-gretchen