The 300 or so households that sign up for Lawrence Township’s planned curbside organic waste recycling program may find they won’t have much to put out in their blue trash containers.
By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
The 300 or so households that sign up for Lawrence Township’s planned curbside organic waste recycling program may find they won’t have much to put out in their blue trash containers.
That’s because much of the contents in a typical kitchen trash container — disposable plates and cups, napkins, scrapings from the dinner plate, egg cartons and egg shells, take-out food containers and pizza boxes — will have landed in the curbside organic waste recycling program bucket.
For the monthly fee of $17, which is payable to Central Jersey Waste & Recycling Co., a household will receive a green cart and a small container for the kitchen, said Pam Frank, who chairs the township’s Environmental Resources and Sustainability Green Advisory Committee.
Ms. Frank spoke last week at the second of three meetings on the curbside organic waste recycling program. A third meeting to explain the program is set for March 26 at 7 p.m. at the Lawrence Branch of the Mercer County Library System on Darrah Lane. Nearly 60 township residents have expressed interest in the program, which is voluntary, but no one has signed up for it yet.
The curbside organic waste recycling program is open to households that have been issued a blue trash container by Lawrence Township. Residents of apartment and townhouse developments who put their household trash in a dumpster are not eligible for the program.
So what can go into that sage green container?
Paper plates and cups, napkins, meat, poultry, fish, vegetative waste such as flowers and garden and yard waste, egg cartons, egg shells, cardboard, pizza boxes, take-out food containers, newspapers, office paper, bread, grains and pasta.
About the only things that cannot go into the organic waste recycling program container is plastic cups, styrofoam cups, clear plastic containers, plastic shopping bags, window glass and aluminum foil.
Reducing the amount of trash that is destined for the landfill would reduce the township’s trash disposal bill, said Pam Mount, who also serves on the advisory committee. Household trash is weighed at the transfer station in Ewing Township before being sent to the landfill. The township is billed on that weight.
Lawrence Township budgeted about $2 million for trash disposal costs in the 2013 municipal budget. This is in addition to the trash collection contract that it signed with Central Jersey Waste & Recycling Co. Township officials estimated savings of $19,000 in trash disposal costs over five years if 300 households sign up for the program.
”About 20 or 30 percent of what goes in the trash could be (handled by) the curbside organic waste recycling program,” Ms. Mount said. “There is a huge potential upside to it. We think we can substantially reduce the weight and save money.”
The curbside organic waste recycling buckets will be picked up weekly, and the contents will be taken to a specialized site in Delaware. It takes about 90 days for the waste to be turned into compost.
By contrast, a hot dog that is dumped into a landfill will look like a hot dog almost forever, said Janet Pellichero, who also spoke at last week’s meeting. She is the recycling coordinator for Princeton, which is the first town in Mercer County to engage in a curbside organic waste recycling program. Nearly 900 Princeton households have signed up for it.
Ms. Pellichero pointed out that while household trash is transported to a landfill in Pennsylvania that is about 25 miles away, the life span of that landfill is only about 15 or 16 more years. When it is full, municipalities and their trash haulers may have to take the trash to landfills in western Pennsylvania or Ohio, she said.
”We shouldn’t ever have to worry about (finding) a new landfill. We shouldn’t need it,” Ms. Pellichero said.

