Four decades ago, national and state-level regulations forced local municipalities, including Southold, to revolutionize how they disposed of solid waste. Town employees and residents were accustomed to the days of the highway department intermittently covering the town’s massive, unlined pile of refuse with sand. But the board knew it had to close this dump and believed Jim Bunchuck — Southold’s first-ever solid waste coordinator who retired on April 18 — had the experience needed to usher the town into a more environmentally conscious era of waste management.
Bunchuck described his overarching responsibility throughout the decades as “the implementation, and in some cases, design” of Southold’s “integrated solid waste management system, which is a combination of aggressive recycling, reuse when possible, waste reduction, and finally — the last in the hierarchy — disposal.”
As a department head, he also managed waste district employees, reviewed waste-related bids and contracts and ensured his facility and the town at large kept up with local and national waste management standards. In stark contrast to his initial reception, Bunchuck, 66, of Greenport, was hardly pushed out the door when he applied for retirement last year. Former Town Supervisor Scott Russell said he practically “begged” Bunchuck to delay his retirement for several months so he could help mentor both of their replacements. Bunchuck obliged, and during the final months of his tenure, he renewed some of the town’s waste management contracts and trained Nick Krupski, who the Town Board recently hired as the new provisional solid waste coordinator.