The dark economic cloud we call recession could have a thin silver lining when it comes to our trashy habits.
People in Catawba County threw away less garbage last year than in any year since 1993.
Recycling numbers also were slightly down.
The figures lead Barry Edwards, the county's director of utilities and engineering, to one conclusion: We likely bought less, reused more or did both.
That idea makes sense as recession grips the country. Retail sales numbers from 2007 and 2008, the most recent available, point to a downward trend in buying. People spent nearly $127 million less in Catawba County in '07 than in '08, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce.
The difference: 450 pounds per person.
The total trash that landed in the county's Blackburn landfill was almost 24,000 tons less in the budget year that ended in 2009 than in the previous year. That is close to a 13 percent decrease.
Compared to the budget year ending in 2006, it is a 20 percent reduction. Even without taking into account trash from construction and demolition, that decrease is the equivalent to every single person in Catawba County throwing away almost 450 fewer pounds.
Diminishing debris is a statewide trend.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources said last week that North Carolina had its lowest rate of trash disposal since 1996.
Even with the sharp decline, it averaged out to about one ton of trash for every state resident.
Analysis found the reduction was primarily because there was less garbage from buildings, including houses.
"Our analysis indicates that the reduction in disposal is a direct result of the economic recession," Dexter Matthews, the state's Division of Waste Management director said in a news release.
But take construction and demolition trash out of the equation and Catawba County still saw a 20 percent decrease between 2006 and 2009, according to the numbers from the Utilities and Engineering Office.
The county has long tried to reduce the amount of trash that ends up in the landfill as a result of building and demolition.
Among its efforts to recycle construction waste, the county put a fine in place more than a decade ago for customers whose trash was more than 10 percent wood. Catawba was the first county in the state to do so. At the end of the 2009 budget year, the landfill had recycled more than 7,000 tons of wood, or about 25 tons for every business day.
That helps keep the county's per-person recycling rates the second-highest in the state.
By the numbers:
165,811 - Tons of garbage that went to Catawba County's Blackburn Landfill in the budget year ending in 2009. It is almost 13 percent less than the 2008 number and 20 percent less than in 2006.
189,752 - Tons of garbage that went to the county's landfill in the budget year ending in 2008.
208,234 - Tons of garbage that went into the landfill in the budget year ending in 2006
156,357 - Tons of garbage that went into the landfill in the budget year ending in 1993, the last time that number was lower than it was in 2009.
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