DERRY — Derry residents are turning their trash into treasure.
In just nine months, the town has already exceeded the amount officials expected to collect from recyclables. And residents have almost doubled the amount they collect from cardboard, scrap metal and newspapers since 2004, according to Public Works Director Mike Fowler.
Once the town collects its recyclables, they are sent to a recycling firm, which pays the town for the trash. In the last year, the amount the firm pays to the town for certain items has risen between 10 and 30 percent, said Fowler.
The town only expected to make $40,000 from the cardboard that residents bring to the Transfer Station and then is hauled off to the recycling company. But so far the town has already made $40,144 with three months left in this fiscal year. Last year, the town only collected a few thousand dollars more in a 12-month span, according to Fowler. Scrap metal and newspaper are bringing in similar figures.
The town budgeted revenues of $60,000 for newspaper but the town is just $500 shy of that figure already. Last year, the town brought in only $60,500 in revenues from old papers, according to Fowler.
The town has also collected 88 percent of their expected revenues from scrap metal already, according to Fowler.
Not only has Derry received more money for recycling but residents are also throwing away less garbage.
Last year the town hauled off 9,300 tons of garbage, down from the 10,500 tons of trash that residents produced in 2006, according to Fowler.
And at $73 per ton, that helps the town save money because it means they have to pay less for trash to be hauled to a landfill.
But it also has to do with residents being more conscious of where their trash goes, Fowler said.
"When they come to the transfer station, they don't see as much newspaper in the garbage as they did years ago," Fowler said.
Those extra funds the town has brought in will help the town offset the cost of plowing, sanding and caring for the roads this winter, according to Fowler. The town has spent more than $100,000 above than the amount officials budgeted for snow removal this winter.
