A private firm will soon be in charge of handling the Kanawha County recycling program. The program has been embattled for several months after the facility at Slack Street where the materials are processed was condemned. West Virginia Recycling will take over the operations there in January and upgrade the facility.
“Most of the options we looked at were concerning leasing property around the county or purchasing property and building a new facility,” said Kanawha County SWA Board Member Rod Watkins. “All of those options are a lot more financial wherewithal than we had access too.”
Under the agreement, all recyclables in the county will be processed and handled by the private company and shipped out for sale. The county SWA will receive $5.50 a ton for all of those materials which leaves the center.
“That’s a fairly modest amount of money for the recycler,” said Watkins. “He will profit from selling the recycled material.”
Watkins calls it a public-private partnership which will benefit both sides. He adds it will also put them back in the position they should have been in all along.
“This shifts our operations side over to now we can concentrate on education, marketing, and promoting recycling,” said Watkins. “Which is what we really should be doing and have done a poor job over the years.”
Watkins says county residents have missed the program which has operated at a diminished capacity since the loss of the building. He says among the biggest complaints were how to handle glass refuse products. He said those will be accepted once the program with the new operator is up and running in the next month.