The County's present day solid waste management system is a direct result of long-term planning put in motion in 1981.   The resulting system accomplishes the primary goals set in 1981, which were to minimize our reliance on landfilling as a means of managing solid wastes, and to minimize the potential impacts of managing solid wastes on the area's coastal environment.   With proactive planning and maintenance, the community has a solid waste system that can provide environmentally sound disposal well into the future.

The primary concern that shaped the County's solid waste management decisions was the area's coastal environment. 

Traditional landfilling methods were not suitable for the characteristically permeable sandy soils and high groundwater table of the area. Aside from the natural beauty of the area, the local economy and recreation revolve around the area's coastal water resources. The potential for leaking landfills contaminating the County's groundwater, rivers and marshes was determined to be too great to ignore.

Another factor that affected the decision-making process was that New Hanover County was the second smallest county and one of the more densely populated counties in North Carolina.  As a result, demand for local land resources are at a premium.

In October 1980, the County requested consulting engineers recommend ways to manage the local solid waste stream that would also protect the quality of the coastal resources. After studying the engineering firm's report, a citizens Solid Waste Task Force concluded that the most appropriate long-term system for handling the County's growing solid waste problem was to:

1.  Construct the state's first high-tech, synthetically lined Landfill to minimize the risk of landfill leachate (or wastewater with the pollutant characteristics of the wastes) escaping from the landfill cells.

2.  Construct the state's first on-site Landfill Leachate Treatment System consisting of leachate collection pipes placed under the trash, a holding lagoon capable of storing 4 million gallons of leachate, and an extended aeration treatment plant for biologically treating the leachate to meet water quality standards before discharge into the Northeast Cape Fear River.

3.    Construct WASTEC, the state's Waste-To-Energy Conversion facility with the purpose of (i) minimizing the amount of material placed in the Landfill, and (ii) rendering the resulting landfilled ash to an environmentally inert state.  As an added feature, equipment was installed to recover and convert the energy created from trash combustion into marketable steam and electricity to help offset operating costs.

Since 1990, the use of Recycling has increased as a solid waste management tool.  In 1990, the City of Wilmington instituted a curbside recycling program, with the Town of Wrightsville Beach, Town of Carolina Beach and the County starting drop-off collection programs.  The Town of Carolina Beach began collecting recyclables at the curb in 1992, with the Town of Kure Beach beginning its drop-off  program the same year.  The Town of Kure Beach began curbside recycling in 1997.  A cardboard recovery operation was put in place in 1997 that nearly doubled the amount of material recycled through the County's operations.