TO THE EDITOR:
I live down the road from the proposed new waste transfer station along N.C. Hwy. 54.
I moved to this area to start a small farm do my best to achieve self-sufficiency and make smaller the footprint my family treads upon this beautiful earth. The decision to put a waste transfer station in the rural part of Orange County offends every one of my values.
The elephant in the living room so to speak about this abysmal decision is that it is essentially allowing UNC to export its trash to a still-rural part of Orange County that is protected watershed.
Seventy percent of the trash generated in the county comes from UNC.
Why not put the waste transfer station on UNC's new north campus (Carolina North)?
There are models of putting a clean efficient and well-run waste transfer station in an urban area elsewhere in the country — Palm Beach Fla. for example. It can be done.
Don't you think that the University should have to look at its own waste problem in the face?
What better way to ensure better efforts to reduce and recycle trash than requiring that before it leaves the county it has to be packaged at the source?
I spent years as a city dweller and one of the illusions about living in an urban environment is that food comes from the grocery store and trash is magically whisked away on trucks to landfills.
In the country the reality is a bit different. The food comes from the ground and the trash has to be dealt with by hauling it to the dump yourself or hopefully composting and recycling it.
It makes bad policy to prevent people from having to examine their own externalities.
And that's exactly what putting Orange County's waste transfer station in a rural part of the county would do.
If not UNC's campus far more ecologically and fiscally sound options exist along the Interstate 40/85 corridor near Hillsborough.
Is it any coincidence that all but one of the county commissioners live there and the one who doesn't voted for that option?
One of the great things about Orange County is how well we manage our trash recycling and natural resources.
We have led other counties by example. Let's not lead ourselves and others down this path.
Suzanne Nelson
Mebane
