Darlington County bags yellow bag program
Posted by jimfaile on 10/24 at 09:06 PM
DARLINGTON - Darlington County’s yellow bag program for solid waste disposal is no more.
Darlington County Council voted 6 – 2 Monday to give final approval on third reading to an ordinance eliminating the program that required households in the county to buy the specially designated plastic yellow bags for household garbage disposal.
Councilmen Le Flowers of Darlington and Wesley Blackwell of Hartsville cast the only votes against the ordinance and in favor of keeping the program.
Flowers also cast the only vote against final approval of a separate related ordinance raising the annual recycling/solid waste fee levied on all households in Darlington County by $12 from its current $35 to $47. He called the increase unfair when he voted against it on second reading last week.
Both ordinances become effective immediately, and homeowners can expect to see the fee increase on their county property tax notices that will go out in November, officials said.
Monday’s vote came during a special called meeting.
Chairman Billy Baldwin of Darlington and members Bobby Hudson of Lamar, Mozella “Pennie” Nicholson of Hartsville, Dannie Douglas of Society Hill, Wilhelmina Johnson of Darlington and Alex “Buz” Shaw of Hartsville voted to approve the ordinance eliminating the bag program.
Shaw, who on previous votes had voted with Blackwell and Flowers to keep the yellow bags, changed his vote abruptly and voted to pass the ordinance.
“If we don’t keep the bags, somebody else is going to have to pay for it to make up for the money we’re going to lose,” Shaw said. “Go ahead and get rid of them.”
The fee increase is intended to replace the estimated $291,000 in annual net revenue generated by the yellow bag program. With the bags gone, the money goes with them, officials said.
County Administrator Dale Surrett said the staff was recommending a fee increase of no less than $12 to make up that revenue. He said his estimates were based on past collections.
The pay-as-you-throw yellow bag program, which has been in place since the mid 1990s, required Darlington County consumers to purchase the yellow bags to dispose of household garbage in the county’s solid waste system.
The program was aimed at encouraging recycling with the idea that the more a household recycled the fewer bags it would have to purchase.
Private commercial haulers operating in the county typically did not require the use of the bags by their customers. Those carriers pay a commercial tipping fee to the county to dispose of waste at the county’s transfer station, where the garbage is processed and compacted for shipment to Lee County’s large landfill.
The City of Hartsville, which opted out of the yellow bag program in June, has been paying the same commercial tipping fee to the county since then.
Surrett said that with the passage of the two ordinances, the county’s municipalities will no longer be charged the tipping fee. Hartsville had increased its solid waste fees by a total of $6.50 a month to help cover the cost of the tipping fee, and city officials have said in the past that if the county eliminated the yellow bag program, the city would likely lower that additional fee.
Darlington County was the only county among South Carolina’s 46 counties that used the yellow bag pay-as-you-throw-program.
In other business, council gave unanimous final approval on third reading to an ordinance adopting new single member election district lines for county council districts. The new plan, which reflects only minor changes, is based on 2010 U.S. Census figures for Darlington County.
The plan was drawn up by the Office of Research and Statistics of the State Budget and Control Board, whose director, Bobby Bowers, told council in September that the new plan meets all U.S. Department of Justice criteria for preclearance.
The Justice Department has 60 days to review the plan. Justice Department approval is required for the plan to be implemented.
Finally!