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October 27, 2022
Weekly news coverage for Charlotte and Hinesburg
Chittenden Solid Waste District asks voters for new sorting facility
thecitizenvt.com
Seed dispersal
Current operation ‘extremely inefficient’ COREY MCDONALD STAFF WRITER
Congratulations, you tossed your empty milk jug into your blue bin and left it outside with other recyclable materials to be picked up by a hauler. You’ve done your part. That jug is off to Williston — to the bustling, frenetic facility off Industrial Avenue where employees use outdated technology in a musty, dark and confined building to sort through hundreds of tons of recyclable material every day to package and sell to a volatile commodities market. If it sounds wildly over-capacity, it’s because it is. The Chittenden Solid Waste District Materials Recovery Facility, or MRF, is “extremely inefficient,” executive director Sarah Reeves said, processing 48,000 tons of materials in a facility equipped to handle only 25,000 tons a year. “It is beyond maximum capacity,” Reeves said. “Very, very few MRFs in the country do this this way. This is not at all best practice, and it reduces the quality and value of these recyclables. We need more space.”
It’s why they’re asking voters to approve a $22 million bond next month so they can build a new stateof-the-art facility where optical sorting provides a streamlined process, taking the burden off employees and giving them room to create a more refined product to sell. The new facility would double the size of the existing facility, and would use optical technologies to sort the materials, with employees overseeing and calibrating the machinery. “This is critical for ensuring high quality of the materials that go to market and will also help us to be able to kind of weather the labor issues and the labor shortages,” Reeves said. “Right now, we do not have full staffing at the month. This will help to kind of weather that condition.”
‘Highly, highly inefficient’ Built in 1993, the materials recovery facility “was at the cutting edge at the time it was built,” said PHOTO BY LEE KROHN
See RECYCLING page 7
A different kind of fall pattern — the life cycle of plants.
Rabies on the rise throughout Chittenden County LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
The Department of Health is urging residents in Chittenden County to take extra precautions due to a greater than expected number of ground-dwelling animals in the county testing positive for rabies. The advisory comes after 10 animals have tested positive for
rabies in the county since July 10, including eight raccoons and two skunks. The total includes five animals in South Burlington, two in Burlington, and one each in Charlotte, Shelburne and Colchester. According to state public health veterinarian Natalie Kwit, this development should raise an alarm in the county. Data from the health department show that, in a typical year, the department could expect
to see about one to two rabid animals from Chittenden County, usually bats. “It’s important that residents take reasonable precautions, such as avoiding contact with wild animals, reporting animals that are acting sick or aggressive, and vaccinating their pets for rabies, so they can enjoy being outside and appreciate wildlife from a safe distance,” Kwit said.
Kwit was able to confirm that two more animals have tested positive for rabies since last week, bringing the total to 12 animals. In response to this uptick in cases, U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services has taken additional measures, including hand vaccinating over 700 raccoons, skunks and foxes for rabies before releasing them back into the wild during their routine
annual fall trapping program that ended on Oct. 14. The USDA will continue their rabies surveillance in Chittenden County by submitting animals to the Vermont Health Department laboratory for rabies testing. If you see a wild or stray animal acting strangely, or are concerned about a rabies exposure, call the Vermont Rabies Hotline at 800-4RABIES.