Talking Trash is Her Passion

Written By Patricia Rouzer

Do not even try trash talk with Maria T. Myers. As Carroll’s resident recyclemeister, she is all about the serious business of conservation.

Lighthearted, warm and possessed of a well-developed sense of humor, Myers, the Recycle Manager in the county’s Bureau of Solid Waste, bristles ever so slightly at any inference that her role has to do with dumping, dumpsters or dumps. The woman is so green she practically sprouts.

The first full-time county employee devoted exclusively to furthering recycling, she is a one-woman recycle marketing machine. During her initial year on the job, Myers has constantly sought new ways to make Carroll Countians, young and old, aware of the need to recycle metal, glass, plastics, paper, batteries, electronics, textiles, etc., and how to do it.

Her mission is to help preserve the environment while extending the life span of the county’s two operating landfills: Hoods Mill, in South Carroll, and the Northern Landfill, near Westminster.

Passionate as she is about her work, Myers acknowledges that recycle experts are made, not born.

“Nobody visualizes themselves growing up to be a recycle manager. I learned from the ground floor up,” she said. In her case her calling evolved as her career unfolded in a grocery chain’s management.

After starting studies for a business degree at the University of Baltimore (she completed the requirements at night school and was awarded her degree in 1989 – some 20 years later), Myers went to work for Giant Food in Lanham, MD. In the course of her career there, she wound up running the company’s recycling program. Astonishingly, no one fought her for the job.

“For some reason people weren’t jumping at the chance to tramp through paper mills, recycling centers and landfills. Giant was recycling before it was popular – office paper, cardboard – things like that,” she said, adding that her former employer was also first to recycle plastic grocery bags.

After 34 years at Giant, the last 22 of which required a 100-mile round trip each day from her New Windsor area home to her suburban Washington office, she retired. Her golden leisure lasted two weeks. Myers joined the county last year as its recycle manager, a role that fits her to a tee.

Even though they are still in their early days, her efforts to boost recycling seem to be effective. In 2007, the latest period for which official numbers are available, 31.33 percent of the county’s refuse was recycled. Although the number for 2008, the year she joined the county, is still not firm, Meyers anticipates that the percentage will jump to at least 38 and could go higher.

The keys to getting more people to recycle are surprisingly simple, Myers said. Give them knowledge about what to recycle and, most of all, make recycling convenient.

Myers is currently developing a publicity campaign to heighten the community’s awareness of recycling, explain what can be recycled and encourage more people to participate. She has already spruced up the recycling pages of the county’s web site and is working on fliers that she hopes will benefit the cause.

Accompanied by a pristine bin filled with recyclable items, she visits schools, civic groups, businesses; any organization whose members want to learn more about the fine art of recycling. Recently Myers replaced her old demonstration bin with a new, larger container because more items are now recyclable.

And, on the convenience front, recycling has become much easier in recent years with the advent of “single stream recycling,” said Myers.

No longer must you segregate paper, plastic, metal and cardboard. You simply – excuse the expression- dump it all together into your container to be picked up at curbside. Your recyclables are taken to centers at the county’s landfills and from there transported to Recycle America’s facility in Elkridge, where they are sorted, bound and dispatched to appropriate reprocessors.

Aside from what gets picked up curbside, there are many other things that can be recycled by delivering them to county recycle centers at the landfills. Electronics such as computer monitors, keyboards, processors, printers, radios, TVs, cd players (but not kitchen appliances) as well as textiles and rigid plastics ranging from lawn chairs to plastic garbage cans are all accepted at the recycle stations in the county’s landfills. Regrettably, anything made out of the dreaded Styrofoam – coffee cups, packing peanuts, etc. – as well as clear plastic like the clam shells used at many salad bars, remain landfill fodder.

Myers would like to establish more e-cycle pickup points for the pervasive electronic equipment that burdens the next generation. She would also like to recycle bottles and cans from carnivals, fairs and sporting events. But that, she said, takes time and volunteers to organize.

Myers said that there is one misunderstanding that seems to impede some peoples’ enthusiasm for the recycle effort.

“People were used to seeing recycle trucks with the bins on the side that most haulers used before we had single stream recycling,” she said. “People tell me all the time that they don’t know if they want to continue recycling because they think the stuff they put in their bin is just being dumped in the landfill.”

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Because we no longer segregate recyclables, and because people are recycling more, haulers now use traditional garbage trucks to gather recyclables, she said. But “these trucks dump their contents at the recycle center and from there the recyclables head off to the processing center; they aren’t dumped in the landfill.”

Myers noted that the technology associated with recycling is rapidly changing. Where once material you could recycle was severely limited, now you can recycle printer cartridges, tennis shoes, motor oil and even the recycle bin, itself, as long as you know what the local hauler takes and what requires special disposal. She said www.earth911.com is a great resource for sorting those things out.

As you might expect from this epitome of green correctness, Myers is also a master gardener, who always has a personal compost pile brewing and works with gardening groups throughout the county to encourage composting.

But despite her expertise, even on the Meyers home front, there is still some confusion. “My husband is always asking me ÔCan we recycle this?’ And now my answer is almost always, ÔYes!’”