Black Mountain’s population is expected to grow significantly by 2025, and that means residents will generate a lot more聽trash. In 2011, the year after the county wrote its聽solid waste management plan, each Black Mountain resident聽produced a half ton of garage –聽some three pounds daily.聽If population projections for 2025 are correct and the half ton-per-person amount isn’t decreased, Black Mountain will be responsible for more lots more garbage headed for the landfill annually.
Already Black Mountain residents are working to reduce the amount they send to the landfill. BlueFire MacMahon, a clay artist living in Swannanoa, is reducing her contribution one piece at a time. Currently she is eliminating plastic from her life (and her garbage). That means she is no longer using plastic Baggies or produce bags. It’s not just about garbage reduction, however. “I do not want my food or the food of my pets absorbing chemicals when it comes in contact with plastic,” she said.
MacMahon,聽whose art can be seen in the Seven Sisters Gallery in Black Mountain,聽started composting recently and has聽found bears and raccoons to be a problem. “I need to upgrade my system,” she said. Her聽next focus is to reduce the number of cat food cans she uses (even though she recycles them).
MacMahon’s new interest in garbage reduction is part of her commitment to live more simply and health consciously. She’s eating right and exercising (and feeling better, she said). “My environment is an extension of my physical body,” she said. “Taking care of the physical environment is just like taking care of my physical body.聽 I now even think more clearly. These changes are profoundly affecting my quality of life.鈥�
Black Mountain makes recycling easy. It has 25 recycling containers around town and downtown, at parks, the Carver Center, the Lakeview Center, and Grey Eagle Arena, town clerk聽Angela Reece said.聽鈥淚n addition, almost every employee has recycling receptacles at their desks,” she said.聽New residents who apply for water service receive a聽brochure聽about聽recycling in town.
Belinda Boxer of Black Mountain has always cared about reducing the amount of her garbage. 鈥淚 grew up in England, and we just don鈥檛 have the space to dispose of lots of garbage,鈥� she said 聽Boxer鈥檚 father was recycling in the 1970s 鈥渂efore it was cool,鈥� she said. “I鈥檝e lived here for 14 years now, and I鈥檓 so interested in minimizing garbage, I embarrass my kids,” she said. “I pick out the recyclables in the trash at their soccer games.聽 I drive home with recyclables from high school football games to make sure they get disposed of properly.鈥�
Boxer, who manages the 10,000 Villages store in Montreat, said聽she has made it her quest to reduce the garbage output of the store as well.聽 She insists all cardboard boxes and brown paper be sent to Mountain Nest Gallery聽in downtown Black Mountain to be used for shipping art purchases.聽 Styrofoam is stored until Asheville Greenworks聽has one of its “hard to recycle” events.聽Electrical waste, like batteries, are likewise stored until it can be taken to the hard to recycle event (she pays $1 per bag to donate those, since they must be driven to Hickory for disposal, but feels it’s聽worth the price to keep toxic chemicals out of the landfill).
鈥淟ight bulbs are still hard,” Boxer said. “I haven鈥檛 found a way to keep those out of the landfill yet. However, when our store got all new computer equipment, I kept the old equipment until I eventually found homes for each piece.聽 Charlotte Street Computers in Asheville was helpful with that effort.
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