SIERRA VISTA — For several months, the Cochise County Recycling Advisory Committee members have been touring the various transfer stations and landfills to familiarize themselves with the current operations of the solid waste department.

They have met with the recycling consultants to hear the options for various programs in the county.

The nine-member committee made up of three people appointed by the county Board of Supervisors from each district has heard the ins and outs of the trash business to get an idea of what recycling program would work best in the county. They were to gauge public interest and gather ideas from the residents to bring back to the supervisors.

Should there be separate bins at the landfill and transfer stations to handle each form of reusable material?

Should there be curbside recycling tubs? And just what, if anything, are county residents willing to do to help keep materials out of the landfill?

Some of the questions will be answered more by the county’s finance department. It all depends on what grants the county gets. And whatever form the recycling program will take depends on what the Board of Supervisors approve and how much it will cost.

During Wednesday’s committee meeting, Marty Haverty, the county’s solid waste director, told the group that the results of the R.W. Beck Consultants study on recycling in the county would be presented next Tuesday morning to the county Rate Review Board. City managers make up that board’s membership. They have a say in how much fees are increased for waste disposal. While some cities, such as Sierra Vista, Bisbee and Douglas, already have productive and relatively profitable recycling programs in place, they may choose to throw in with the county to save money on future tonnage fees.

Later Tuesday afternoon, the consultants and Haverty will be presenting the Rate Review Board’s opinion to the Board of Supervisors during a work session.

Several committee members said they would be attending one or both of those meetings.

Haverty has spoken with most of the city managers and most are enthusiastic about effort.

“Bisbee is the only real issue right now,” Haverty told the group. “Steve Pauken, the city manager, wants to see how it will all fit. Right now they are focusing on the commercial waste stream and offer bins for office paper, newspaper, cardboard and aluminum cans at the transfer station.”

The most important aspect to the committee is to provide plenty of education for the residents about recycling, as was brought up by Joan Werner of Bisbee. She also wanted to see the county take advantage of construction debris, such as concrete and cement, and grind it for county purposes to save transportation costs of the heavy waste.

But Haverty told the group that no matter how much people were informed there would still be a considerable amount of waste that would have to manually removed from the waste stream.

To deal with taking bulky items like cardboard and turning it into the bales that will be sold, he sees the need for a baler and a compactor at each transfer station and grants may be just thing to provide that equipment. Also on the wish-list are chippers to reduce yard waste to mulch.

“Cardboard takes up a lot of room. If we could get even a 10 percent reduction in cardboard it would save on transportation costs. We want each load of waste to be as heavy as possible,” he explained.

Bonnie White, who is from Dragoon, agreed with Haverty.

“Even if we tell people to separate cardboard, they still put it in the trash,” she said.

Kathy Suagee, who sits on the Benson City Council, developed a possible survey to send to residents to get their opinions of what they would like the county recycling program to include and what materials they would be willing to separate and bring to the transfer stations.

The committee members also discussed the problem with plastic bags that litter the landfill and the transfer stations. Werner feels the problem is significant enough to ban them completely from the county.

And though the committed and passionate group wants to do more, Supervisor Pat Call, who is the board liaison, said, “We developed a narrow definition of your purpose and we are creeping up on the end of your mission. You can continue on course, but we’d have to have justification for continuing.”

The public is welcome at the Cochise County Recycling Advisory Committee meetings. The next meeting is scheduled for 3 p.m. on Sept. 3 at a location to be announced possibly in Douglas.

Meetings are posted on the county Web site at: http://www.co.cochise.az.us/ccwebsite/PublicMeeting.asp.