Each year the Department of Sustainability & Solid Waste Management puts together an Impact Flyer. Click here to see the full Impact Flyer. The flyer highlights some of the positive impacts that we accomplished together. Who is “we”? We work closely with Cornell Cooperative Extension, Ontario County Soil and Water Conservation District, Finger Lakes Visitors Connection, and local municipalities, to name a few. But one of our most important partners is YOU! Thanks for everything you do to reduce, reuse, recycle, compost, and promote these programs in your community.
The Impact Flyer highlights a few of the programs and accomplishments from the previous year. One of the interesting things that the Department tracks is the amount of waste produced by Ontario County generators that is sent to be landfilled and the amount of materials that are diverted from final disposal in a landfill. We use this to calculate the diversion rate for Ontario County. In 2022, the diversion rate was 40% with over 38,000 tons of material collected for recycling, composting, etc. It’s also interesting to note that recycling collected and processed at the Ontario County Materials recovery facility increased by almost 1,000 tons from 2021 to 2022. Great job Ontario County!
Another interesting section on the Impact Flyer this year is about the Waste Characterization Study that was performed in 2022. This included the sorting of waste sent to the landfill by material. Each material was then weighed and that weight was recorded. The sector where the waste was generated was also recorded. What really stands out from the graph of the materials that are being sent to be landfilled, is that 57% of those materials could have been recycled, composted, or taken to a special collection event. Of that 57%, 32% were materials that could have been composted and 23% were materials that could have been recycled. To be clear, these are not recyclable materials that were placed in blue recycling bins and sent to the materials recovery facility. These are materials that were placed in garbage cans, that could have been placed in blue recycling bins instead. Click here to see the full Waste Characterization Study.
Check out the second page of the Impact Flyer for new programs, community support, and legislative resources that the Department of Sustainability & Solid Waste Management completed/provided in 2022.
If you have any questions about waste disposal, services the Department is able to provide, or have a group interested in a presentation please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at recycle@ontariocountyny.gov.
