The Green Box

[Music] you wouldn't believe it but one time i got numerous complaints about this area this was a city dump for clinton it's loaded with garbage and rubble and rubbish flies rats other vermin burning all the time with smoke boiling from it that situation has been eliminated now since we have our new sanitary landfill we don't have those complaints that we had at one time from this source this whole sign here for instance it served its purpose in its day a very useful purpose now we're considering whether to take it to the sanitary landfill and bury it up to the courthouse and hang it on the wall with a plaque on it saying retired [Music] the summers are hot in alabama and the garbage from 26 000 people just sat and simmered in the sun this is how the dumps in the county next door looked today [Music] when charlie made his let's clean up chilton county speeches he'd mention swarms of pesky flies rats it turned out there were 1800 of them at the clanton city dump smoke and air pollution and one other matter self-respect [Music] the problem was very difficult door-to-door pickup throughout chilton county's sparsely settled 700 square miles would have been far too expensive and so some civic leaders thought up the idea of the green box locate them at convenient places along highways so they would be as close or closer than the nearby open dump mechanically pick up the refuse every other day with a big packer truck then establish a carefully operated centrally located sanitary landfill and close the county's 40 major unauthorized open dumps and the hundreds of smaller ones the bureau of solid waste management of the department of health education and welfare awarded a demonstration grant the objective to determine if such a container collection system would be a practical solution for rural solid waste management problems which exist all over the country [Music] the town of clanton the chilton county seat already had a good house-to-house collection system as did the three other municipalities of jemison maplesville and thursby these collection programs were continued unchanged but the refuse was no longer taken to their four dumps but rather to the new sanitary landfill these communities approved of the new system because smoke and odor had always been a problem and all of their dumps were nearly full county sanitarian gay discovered to his sorrow that there's no simple formula for assessing rat populations and exterminating them with the help of the alabama department of health and the united states public health service the rats were exterminated and the dumps covered with clean earth during 1969 nearly every house in the four incorporated towns was visited one or more times to explain the new solid waste disposal program and potential benefits of rat and mosquito eradication both at the old dumps and in town the key element of the clean and green project is the new sanitary landfill located on county property near the intersection of two major highways the use of a single centrally located fill site would increase hauling costs somewhat but proved to be much more economical than operating multiple landfills with duplicate equipment and personnel the project director and the project consultant designed the landfill after taking borings determining soil types and drainage conditions and making a thorough study of the site the new landfill manager attended the one week training course sanitary landfill principles conducted by the bureau of solid waste management in cincinnati [Music] let's face it after all we were forced into the garbage collection business judge thomas hayes of the board of revenue and control we were using the open pit system all over the county which didn't work out successful at all because the people would not go to the pits and dump it so we decided that we would go to a county-wide garbage system because we knew this was going to be a success we had to get the people of the county to use it so by the means with the help of the extension service our health department and other civic organizations we started talking cleaning green and you know the funny thing was when we first started putting out these cans the telephone would ring say judge get that can away from my place i don't want our garbage place in my front door so we like to wear out the first cans we got moving them from one place the other but you know after six months the telephone quit ringing then the next three months they went to ringing judge bring a ken over here to my place we need one the novel part of project clean and green is the green box its use could convert an uncontrollable solid waste problem into an orderly system if it worked because of the extensive mileage to be traveled a large packer was selected which however would not exceed highway load limits it has a load lift capacity of 4500 pounds and a capacity of 30 cubic yards the container collection system has proved so successful that there are now 90 boxes and each one is being emptied every other day [Music] most of the containers are situated along highways it soon became apparent that during wet weather the packer truck and people using the containers were inconvenienced by mud thus a paved area was provided to facilitate all weather access no use having a system of containers if people don't use them so an intensive user education program was undertaken the county extension chairman of the county sanitarian gave talks to civic clubs and church groups the new project was promoted by the local newspaper and radio station and even on television many door-to-door visits were made however people don't always react favorably no matter how good the engineering proposals may be or how intensive the salesmanship here is cletus ingram pastor of the walnut creek united methodist church with his comments when i heard that the landfill was going to come to clanton and be located right across the highway from the walnut creek united methodist parsonage and church i was very much opposed because i had seen the various dumps across the country with all of the rats and the flies and the smells but now that we have the landfill we can see that it's clean chilton county up and i'm very much in favor of it because it does keep us clean and green project director robert alexander after learning that it would be my responsibility to take care of the clinton landfill here in chilton county i decided that i would look at several landfills and i went to several over the state and out of the state also and mostly what we saw was a combination landfill and dump we were determined to try to have an ideal landfill here in chilton county as a result we have what i think is one of the cleanest landfills in the country mr bob is the county engineer and supervises the whole project which operates seven days a week he's hired four full-time men the landfill manager weighs and records the loads brought for placement at the fill the landfill tractor operator is almost wholly occupied with the daily placement compaction and covering of the wastes the rural collection truck driver collects rural wastes and maintains his packer truck and a utility operator substitutes for other personnel and is responsible for maintenance of wholesome environmental conditions at the sanitary landfill site titan alabama has a population of 5800 people it's what damn yankees call a sleepy southern town [Music] so but clanton is just like any community in one respect if you look there's always someone who doesn't relish the thought of higher taxes any new and improved public work system has to cost more than the inferior system it replaced so let's look at the politics of this situation and visit the board of commissioners in the chilton county courthouse gentlemen next order of business will be our clean and green project jim as you know our clean and green project now is right at two-year-old and the board would like to ask some questions pertaining to this project such as do you think it's doing a good job of cleaning our rideaways also we like comparison with the other systems being used over the country and uh we'd like to know pertaining to the cost of this project we are we getting our money's worth or anything else that you might bring us up to date on our clean and green project george it's a real pleasure to give you a report on project clean and green the public acceptance of our project has been most encouraging the job that has been done of cleaning up the county is phenomenal the costs that have been incurred are reasonable and the real clincher is that there have been four other counties in the state of alabama who have adopted the system after visiting our project now during this two-year period we've implemented the system of containers for storage of rurally generated waste we have operated the sanitary landfill in a way that is much better than any i've seen in operation anywhere we have taken all of the solid waste from the municipalities in the county and we have taken care of the solid waste generated by the industry in the county the series of containers that i mentioned these four cubic yard containers that you're each very familiar with from having driven past many times and having seen them in use we had placed at about 43 container sites by november of last year now these 43 sites had on them 57 containers and they were arranged so that fifty percent of the people in the county lived nearer to one of these than one point six miles and ninety percent of the people lived at least as close as 3.7 miles to a container as a matter of fact 95 percent of the people were nearer than 4.8 miles so that these containers have been located to serve the people and the people have respected the containers they have used them and have maintained them we have some cleanup that is necessary at the container site but we don't have a large amount the people appreciate the fact that there's a system for disposal of their waste if a public works system produces good results and is economical it is a good system but if it produces good results and is expensive lots of people will say it is a poor system accordingly the project is being carefully evaluated every ton of refuse is weighed and functional unit costs are being compiled for the final report while costs will vary widely in other parts of the country this landfill is handling 800 tons a month at about two dollars per ton including equipment amortization project consultant dr jim walters of the university of alabama gives us more financial data responding specifically to your question on cost it was april of may of last year before we got the entire operation to a point where we thought it was representative during may of last year in our rural collection system we collected 116 tons at a unit cost of 10.17 per ton now during the may of this year we collected 184 tons and the unit cost on that amount of waste was down to 6.75 per ton a much more reasonable cost as a result of handling more waste during the same period for the similar period this year our sanitary landfill operations cost us two dollars and six cents per ton of waste disposed so that this is within a reasonable cost figure a few additional developments occurred during the project the tendency of container lids to stand open proved objectionable nearby cusa county which is adopting the system has procured boxes which are not as high and have a sure closed lid operating experience has indicated the need for periodic site and container cleanup regular personnel operate this steam cleaning equipment to sanitize the boxes which have drainage holes in the bottom no sanitary problems have been experienced from steam clean out the county system of mobile radio communications is used to call prompt attention to trouble spots the container system has replaced the expensive county program which previously cleaned up highway right-of-ways and stream channels rapid maintenance prevents a small nuisance from becoming a large one and psychologically reinforces the public's memory that the container sites are not dirty disagreeable places [Music] will the green box work in your county that depends on whether this is the right system for you on your technical skills and local leadership if you're interested in reading the project report contact your regional office or the office of information of the bureau of solid waste management [Music] clean and green is not much physically just 90 green boxes a packer truck a crawler tractor a new landfill for employees and lots of closed dumps and dead rats really it's a state of mind the determination to act and cooperate the initiative to devise a new and effective system the engineering skill to make it work and the human relations ability to solicit the essential public support clean and green is sanitarian charlie gay who originally raised a rumpus judge hayes who didn't cave in when people objected pastor ingram who thought badly of it and then changed his mind jim walters who worried about the technical details mr bob who runs it and is proud of it and many others the green box promises to go to work all over the country but it all started in chilton county alabama [Music] [Applause] [Music] so you