opinion

Don’t let other states dump on Greenville

Greenville County has become one of the most admired and desired places to live in America.

Our leaders have done an amazing job making this a place that balances economic growth, quality of life and the rights of its people. That is a tough balance and not many places do it well.

That is why it is disturbing that Greenville County is considering making us a cut-rate dumping ground for out-of-state trash.

Greenville County recently announced a desire to bring an additional 70,000 tons of garbage per year from Henderson County, N.C., over the next five years. That is 350,000 tons of out-of-state trash to Twin Chimneys landfill.

While some will say trash is trash and it will help the county’s bottom line, we ask at what cost does this make sense?

During a recent County Council workshop, $20 per ton was suggested as the rate for accepting this garbage. Is that standard? Let’s look at neighboring South Carolina counties.

Anderson is $40. Spartanburg is $47. Pickens is $45. Oconee is $50. Laurens is $55. Greenville County is charging less than half of its closest neighbors. Is there that much of a need for us to take in trash? Is our land really that invaluable to our county employees?

At $20, we are selling our quality of life for the cost of a coffee maker. A coffee maker that will end up at the landfill. Greenville County should not accept any out-of-state waste for less than $30 a ton, especially when we’ve invested in building our own landfill for our own garbage.

From a business standpoint, it makes no sense. Economic growth is good for Greenville, but it shouldn’t come cheaply.

By agreeing to accept 350,000 tons of out-of-state waste, we are agreeing to accept 15,000 additional 22-ton garbage haulers onto our roads. Those 15,000 trucks would be driving past our homes, schools and churches, adding unnecessary traffic, litter and danger risk onto our roadways.

Litter is already prevalent around areas such as Highway 25 from the landfill’s current operations, and road damage from the 22-ton trucks traveling back and forth in Greenville County is inevitable. That $20 per ton will not suffice to maintain road conditions and control excess litter.

This is a situation where selling our county out to the lowest bidder will hurt our citizens’ quality of life in the process.

Furthermore, the Twin Chimneys landfill has an annual cap of 500,000 tons per year. Adding 70,000 extra tons of garbage per year would not only reduce the landfill’s life expectancy; it would also leave very little room for growth for Greenville County. Why would we fill up to that limit with out-of-state waste, and limit taxpayers from using the resource that they paid for?

In addition, Henderson County’s request for proposal (RFP) does not require Greenville County to submit a disposal bid yet every other county is asked to submit one. Thus it provides Greenville County the opportunity to undercut the price based on all other bids. This is not a fair way for Greenville County to compete in the garbage disposal business.

Greenville County is known for tremendous growth in the past decade, not as a cheap dumping spot of the South. We should not have to sacrifice our quality of life for the county to profit.

There are some things that should not be done for money. Accepting cheap, out-of-state waste is one of them.

David Wyatt is a partner in Gleaton Wyatt, P.A., and a resident of northern Greenville County. Eric Bedingfield, a state representative, is a former Greenville County Council member and lives in the southern part of Greenville County.