MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – News13 told you earlier this week about Horry County’s contract with the Charleston County Waste Authority.
The county agreed to take the Low Country’s recyclables last summer when Charleston was in a bad spot. Some county officials thought Horry County could benefit from the deal.
When the deal was pitched to county officials, they were told they could have the opportunity to make $1.5 million. As of right now, that deal has the county in the red $60,000 and it’s something county officials are taking a closer look at.
Charleston needed somewhere to temporarily take their recyclables while their new facility was being built.
Johnny Vaught, the Chairman of Horry County’s Infrastructure and Regulations Committee said the most important factors of the deal was to not lose money, and to not shorten the life of Horry County’s landfill. He said after Horry County’s landfill is full, there probably will not be another one.
Vaught said they agreed to the deal, more or less, to help our sister county out because he always doubted any financial gain with the contract.
“When I looked at the original contract, I didn’t see the numbers there, I didn’t see how we could make a million and a half dollars on it,” reports Vaught. “I was one of the ones who originally protested doing it in the first place because I couldn’t see that, you know. So I am not surprised to not see that. Recycling is seldom a money making prospect.”
Vaught also added that county officials have protected tax payers dollars the entire duration of the contract and people should not be worried.
“The worse we can be in the red is maybe $100,000 as a raw figure. Not a huge amount of money or anything like that and there are clauses in there in that contract that protect us from losing any money that we can recover the cost from Charleston Solid Waste Authority. We are not going to lose any money,” confirms Vaught.
County officials can end the contract with Charleston waste authority at any time, but Vaught said as long as Horry County is not losing money, he’s not going to terminate the contract.
