Saturday marked the 25th year of the Berkeley County Drop-Off Recycling Program, a program that first started in the parking lot of the Food Lion Grocery Store in Inwood and has grown to a sprawling effort of a number of beautification programs and boasts the first renewable resource recovery facility, Entsorga, of its kind in the nation.
Solid-waste authorities were created by an act of the Legislature in 1988 as part of a citizen-driven, statewide push back to Charleston agencies attempting to site 23 mega-landfills across the state, Clint Hogbin, Chairman of the Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority said. “Each of these landfills was so large that any single one of them could have handled the entire waste stream of West Virginia,” Hogbin said. “Sadly, this was Charleston’s sole plan for the management of West Virginia’s waste stream.”
According to Hogbin, on top of this, there was no emphasis on recycling, litter-control programs or alternatives to landfilling anywhere in the state, and citizens demanded better. Hogbin said it was this ground swell that led to one of the first efforts to decentralize state government with the creation of county solid-waste authorities.
“Solid-waste management is now one of the few topics in West Virginia where the counties can choose significant control over its destiny. I view solid-waste authorities as an ongoing test of the concept to bring more decision-making authority to the local level. Local control is vital for the Eastern Panhandle to continue to be successful,” Hogbin said. “There were seven generations of Hogbins prior to me in the extended Eastern Panhandle. It’s been a wonderful place to live and raise a family. My hope is another seven generations will choose to live here, and this is my way of giving back.”