By the end of 2008, Crawford County Solid Waste Authority hopes to be back up to a full complement of recycling sites, Recycling Coordinator Brenda Schmidt said Monday. In order to get there, however, bins serving six municipalities and their surrounding areas will be eliminated beginning early next week.

In January, plans were announced to close all but seven of the permanent blue-bin recycling drop-off sites scattered throughout the county. Since then, Cochranton Public Library has been added to the list of sites that will remain, making a total of eight. In addition to Cochranton, recycling will continue at the current sites in Conneaut Lake, Hydetown, Randolph Township, Richmond Township, Home Depot and Wal-Mart in Vernon Township, and the West Mead Township Building.

A long list of factors has contributed to the county’s current state of recycling affairs, beginning with a state court ruling in late 2005 that eliminated the administrative surcharged assessed by counties and authorities on landfills. That ruling cost the authority approximately $120,000 per year. Add to that a drop in the price paid for recycled materials and a drop in tonnage, and the authority was looking at a major financial drain.

While the authority continues to mull the future of its recycling facility on McHenry Street in the West Mead Industrial Park, a number of steps are being taken or are in the planning stage.

The authority, for example, is in the process of emptying out the building at its old site, next to the West Mead Township Building. While there is what Schmidt describes as “an interested customer” for a baler on the site, everything else remaining in the building will probably be scrapped. Once the building has been emptied, the process of transferring ownership to West Mead Township will begin. No recycling operations have taken place at the old site since 2005. “It’s likely that the building will be emptied out by the end of May,” Schmidt said.

The McHenry Street facility will probably be put up for sale. Although a date hasn’t been set, the authority is leaning toward a late-May auction. “There’s a lot of unprocessed stuff there,” Schmidt explained. “Bidders say it makes the building more valuable.”

However, she added, “It’s anybody’s guess whether it will remain a recycling facility or not.”

Schmidt has arranged for new homes for all but four of the 90-plus blue recycling bins owned by the authority. During their recent monthly meeting, members praised her for her ingenuity.

Even though new homes, primarily with recycling programs in Schuylkill, Monroe and Carbon counties, await, the present bins will remain in place until new ones arrive, probably in September.

Their replacement is part of a move designed to get the authority out of the recycling-processing business altogether. “Everything will be picked up on a contract basis,” Schmidt explained. “That’s where we see ourselves, supervising the collection program and being able to offer programs for electronics recycling, household hazardous waste and tires.”

However, in order for that to happen, the bins have to go.

“The way collection is done now is fairly expensive because it’s a proprietary system,” Schmidt explained. The V-Quip bins now in place must be emptied using specially-designed side-loading trucks, while the new bins are designed to be emptied using any front-end loader. Once the bins are replaced, both V-Quip trucks owned by the authority can be eliminated and pickups can be handled by an outside contractor.

“By the end of 2008, we hope to be back to 15 sites,” Schmidt said. “As a county, we’re not mandated to recycle, but it’s definitely something the public wants us to do.”

Six recycling centers to be removed