Too much mulch has prompted Bethlehem Township officials to consider ways to control the amount of yard waste is being brought to the township recycling center by landscape contractors. Among the ideas: Charging landscape contractors an annual fee.
Yard waste includes tree limbs and other wooded vegetation that the center grinds with a machine, which turns it into a course mulch. But the problem is the township has too much mulch. “We had such a glut. We were left with piles and piles of mulch. We just had so much.’’ Assistant Public Works Director Rich Kanaskie said at Monday’s Board of Commissioners meeting.
Last spring the amount of mulch at the Falmer Drive facility was so immense, the township was forced to have 560 tons of it removed at a cost of $1,750, Kanaskie said. “A 53-foot trailer had to haul it away. There were seven loads and each load was 80 tons and it cost $250 a load,’’ he said.
The mulch situation is currently at a manageable level, but he said it will likely increase again, and there needs to be some way to manage it since the bulk of the material is coming from commercial landscapers.
Read the full story at http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-nws-bethlehem-township-mulch-recycling-center-20180806-story.html#.