Assembly Seeks New Waste Collection Methods

Brianna Gibbs/KMXT

Last night the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly met for a work session and discussed waste management within the borough. Nick Szabo is the chair of the Solid Waste Advisory Board and spoke about the need for more reuse and recycling within the community. He said those will be the borough’s best defense against growing quantities of solid waste, but more education and outreach is needed within the community. Szabo said Threshold Recycling Services has an outreach program in place, and a good option for the borough would be to jump on board with those efforts. He suggested contributing about $6,000 to Threshold to help with their current outreach efforts, and implement new ones. Borough Mayor Jerome Selby said borough staff will definitely look into the financial contribution, but they would need to know exactly what the money would be used for before it was allocated.

Another topic Szabo touched on was the idea of solid waste collection stations in Kodiak. He said the borough has discussed these before, but nothing has been done.

— (Solid Waste 1 :48 “The present situation is not the … have them located.”)

Selby said he wasn’t sure if now was the best time to look at the collection stations in all of Kodiak, but maybe start with one particular area.

— (Solid Waste 2 :46 “Personally I think we have … from my perspective.”)

Assemblywoman Louise Stutes said she didn’t feel comfortable limiting the solid waste advisory board, or SWAB, and felt the issue should be addressed for all areas of Kodiak.

— (Solid Waste 3 :28 “To limit SWAB and say now … saying just the flats.”)

A number of advisory board members attended last night’s work session, one being Rob Baer (Bear). While new to the board, Baer referenced borough goals from years past and questioned the reality of their fruition if waste management and collection does not change.

— (Solid Waste 4 :46 “I’m new to the SWAB, just … needs to happen.”)

No formal decisions were made during the meeting, but the assembly did give the nod for the advisory board to start researching different collection stations and draw up some tentative plans for what they might look like in Kodiak. All agreed with Baer in that a change in procedure does need to occur to help minimize solid waste and encourage reuse and recycling.

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