Madison County’s new recycling system is still working well for a portion of its citizens living outside city limits.
In July of last year, supervisors voted to take away two of the three recycling dumpsters located at the Southwest fire district station, the Yandell Road fire station and the Stribling Road fire station.
Officials said people were throwing non-recyclables into the bins, and sometimes trash was found strewn around the bins. Firefighters were then responsible for picking up the trash.
“We’ve been having a real problem at our fire departments with the recycling bins,” District 4 Supervisor David Bishop told officials last summer. “It’s gotten to the point where our firefighters are out there picking up trash just about on a daily basis.”
The recycling bin located at the Southwest fire station was the only dumpster not removed.
“We’ve had minimal complaints about the one at Southwest,” Shelton Vance, county administrator, said at the time.
So far, officials are saying that’s still the case.
“As far as I know, the Southwest dumpster is still there, and it appears to be operating appropriately,” District 1 Supervisor Sheila Jones, board president, said. “If there was dumping into that unit, Waste Management would let us know, because they have to trash everything if it’s contaminated. We haven’t had any complaints from Waste Management, so I think everything is OK there.”
Waste Management, the company that handles the county’s trash and recycling services, picks up recycling from the Southwest fire station three days a week — Monday, Wednesday and Friday — and charges a $150 fee per pickup.
With the previous recycling locations, Jones said it didn’t make sense to pay for recycling if citizens were misusing the bins.
“If you contaminate it, the whole dumpster goes to trash. If we’re going to have to take (recycling) to trash, why pay for recycling? It doesn’t make sense money-wise.”
Jones said the county just has the one dumpster at this time, but that many county citizens are now using a door-to-door recycling service that also takes glass.
“We just have the one dumpster at this point. We’re not getting any complaints anymore, because there’s a private business that picks up recycling for $10 a month. They also pick up glass. A lot of my constituents are using that door-to-door service. It’s been a quiet issue.”
Supervisors originally voted to eliminate curbside service for residents in the county outside city limits at the beginning of 2017.
In late December 2016, county officials voted to end curbside recycling to help save approximately $215,000 a year. Less than 30 percent of county citizens were taking advantage of the offer, District 2 Supervisor Trey Baxter said.
However, in the weeks following the placement of the bins at the fire stations, the dumpsters were overflowing with recyclables to be picked up.
Later, citizens began using the bins for trash, causing officials to do away with two of the three recycling bins they’d offered to replace curbside recycling services.
