Habersham County’s landfill that was once projected to last until 2072 may not make it two more years, according to figures presented at Monday’s Board of Commissioners meeting.
The landfill is gorging at an alarming rate, as the county is taking in eight times as much trash as of this summer than it did nine years earlier.
When Cell 5 of the landfill opened in 2020, it was expected to take two years to fill in the first layer. That layer took only 11 months to fill, and two years later, it was already 20 percent into a third layer.
Chairman Bruce Palmer said there was no money set aside to build a new landfill, as some rumors have suggested.
“Plus it would take 8-10 years to open a new site,” Palmer said. “We need to come up with something quickly.”
A presentation by the county commissioners suggested that the rise in household garbage in the county was joined by the lack of an adequate recycling program as reasons why the problem has escalated so rapidly. The county also has filled up its construction and demolition cell.
The county recycles around 2 percent right now, with the recommended figure from the Environmental Protection Division being around 25 percent.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what our problem is,” Palmer said.
Currently, there are recycling sites in Cornelia (507 Nicolon Drive) and Clarkesville (4142 Toccoa Highway) that are each open Thursday to Saturday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Recycling is offered at the landfill when it is open, which is Monday to Friday 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Saturday, 6 a.m. to noon.
Palmer said the recycling hours are limiting and inconvenient for many residents, adding that the problem with doing more recycling is that it will cost more money.
“It’s one of those things that snuck up on us,” Commissioner Ty Akins said. “You can see from the data why previous commissions did not think this was a priority. … I think recycling is something we are going to have to invest in. It has to be user-friendly for our citizens and we have to jump into it with both feet.”
Even in August 2021, the projections were showing the landfill could last until 2037, but those projections have dropped off a cliff.
A chart given out by the county Monday showed the potential filling of the landfill by the first quarter of 2024, somewhere around 15 months from now.