Luzerne County Manager Romilda Crocamo, left, and county Recycling Coordinator Beth DeNardi accepted the Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence in Harrisburg last week in recognition of the county’s eco-friendly renovations of a former Air Reserve Center on Wyoming Avenue in Wyoming.
Submitted Photo
The Luzerne County Courthouse Office of Solid Waste and Recycling Management was recently presented with a Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence.
The award was granted in recognition of the county’s eco-friendly renovations of a former Air Reserve Center on Wyoming Avenue in Wyoming.
The building now houses the county recycling/solid waste department and operational services offices and a technology-equipped meeting room that is available for both government meetings and private rental bookings, officials said.
The county gutted and renovated the building’s office space, using as many recycled materials as possible.
The percentage of recycled content in building materials: carpeting, 100%; ceiling tiles, 76%; countertops, 23%; vinyl floors, 39%; and stonework, 55%.
Longtime county Recycling Coordinator Beth DeNardi dreamed of an office building that would showcase environmentally-conscious remodeling and saved leftover landfill fees and grants for many years to make it a reality without any impact on the county’s general fund operating budget, officials said.
The approximately $4 million she accrued to complete the remodeling must be used for recycling and cannot be reprogrammed to cover other demands, such as road and bridge repairs, DeNardi has emphasized.
The landfill fee stems from a county solid waste plan enacted every 10 years specifying where the county and all 76 municipalities are permitted to dump their trash. The county and municipalities must negotiate per-ton dumping fees with their selected landfills, and part of the fee returns to the county, DeNardi has said.
The county had taken possession of the vacant former reserve center on Wyoming Avenue around 2019, in part because it is near the Wyoming Valley Airport and county-owned West Side Annex.
The awards were presented at a dinner at the Harrisburg Hilton, hosted by the Pennsylvania Environmental Council.
Two awards were given to each winner — one from the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and the other from the state Department of Environmental Protection and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
