MORGANTOWN — An increase in fees from Republic and tightening contamination restrictions have Monongalia County rethinking its recycling program.
Beginning in November of 2014, the county partnered with the city of Westover to operate a recycling drop off at the Westover city building.
In February 2015, the county began running a Saturday drop off recycling program at the Hornbeck Road Walmart.
Up until this point, trash and recycling hauler Republic Services has not charged a tipping fee for hauling all this recycling — about 630 tons annually, on average.
This past year, 222 tons was collected on Saturdays and 408 tons was dropped at Westover.
Starting April 1, a $35/ton tipping fee goes into effect.
The fee, coupled with the amount of contamination that ends up in the unmonitored Westover site will likely prompt a change in how the county does things.
“Now that they’ve gone to a .05% contamination limit rather than 5%, it’s made a major impact,” Commissioner Tom Bloom said. “If we’re paying $35 a ton and there’s 400 tons coming out of Westover but 350 of them end up going in the garbage because of contamination then we need to rethink what we’re doing.”
Commission President Ed Hawkins agreed.
“At that point we’re basically paying money to make people feel good,” he said.
Westover Mayor Dave Johnson said the city fenced off the drop site, but can’t monitor it.
“People throw garbage in. They’ll throw it over the gate if it’s not open,” Johnson said. “We don’t have the manpower to police that on a daily basis. Most people think they’re doing their civic duty by recycling and I appreciate that, but we have a lot of people who abuse it.”
Bloom said the county intends to pay the new fee for the next three month and monitor the program while it works on a plan.
He went on to say that he intends to reach out to WVU and the municipalities.
“I think we need to be uniform in what we’re doing because the contamination issue is affecting all of us,” Bloom said. “We need to do a better job of educating the public.”
