ES.

4 ORGANIZATION OF THE PLAN DOCUMENT

Chapter 1 of the Plan provides an overview of the planning purpose, history, process, planning
area description, and waste stream data used for analysis. Chapter 2 of the Plan provides an
overview of the discarded material stream analysis, aspirational goals, per capita reduction
goals, and environmental impacts of the per capita reduction goals. Because the state requires
that certain elements are addressed in the Plan, the remaining chapters are organized by the
following topics. Each of these chapters details the existing and potential new policies,
programs, and infrastructure, and provides recommendations for future strategies, for each
topic. 

The Mecklenburg County 2012 Solid Waste Management Plan is the ten‐year plan for eight
local governments: Mecklenburg County (County), the City of Charlotte, and the Towns of
Cornelius, Davidson, Huntersville, Mint Hill, Matthews, and Pineville. These jurisdictions form
the Planning Area. Throughout this document, the terms 2012 Plan, Plan Update, Mecklenburg
County Plan, and Ten‐Year Plan refer to the 2012 Solid Waste Management Plan for these
governmental entities, unless otherwise stated.   Through the efforts of the citizens, businesses,
and municipalities in Mecklenburg County, the County is a leader in waste reduction and
recycling. The County and the municipalities have initiated many innovative and nationally
recognized programs for diverting materials from landfills, including:  Single family and
multifamily residential curbside recycling (adding new materials including aerosol cans, aseptic
containers, juice boxes and milk cartons, plastics #1‐5 and #7)  Single family residential yard
trimmings collection  Single family and multifamily bulky item collection  More than 120
commercial drop‐off recycling centers  Electronics recycling at fully staffed County drop‐off
centers  Household hazardous waste (HHW) collection at fully staffed County drop‐off centers
 Home composting workshops  Construction and demolition debris (C&D) recycling 
Mandatory commercial recycling  Commercial technical assistance  Food scraps diversion
alternatives research This Plan seeks to take waste reduction and recycling to the next level to
achieve the County goals of maximizing waste prevention, recycling, and composting and
minimizing waste to landfills. In order to promote the notion that waste is not waste until it is
wasted, certain state‐ defined terms have been modified in this Plan, where the term could be
modified without losing the intent of the discussion. These terms are described in the Glossary
of Terms (e.g., yard trimmings instead of yard trash or yard waste; food scraps instead of food
waste; discarded materials or materials instead of waste).