NEWS

Recycling program helps keep garbage out of landfills

Jeff Barron
Reporter

LANCASTER - The Lancaster-Fairfield Community Action Agency last year recycled almost 5 million pounds of waste that would have otherwise ended up in landfills.

“We’re all about recycling,” education coordinator Chad Reed said. “And we really try to promote it and practice what we preach. We try to encourage people to buy recycled and to keep that process going.”

The agency started its non-profit recycling program in the early 1980s as a pilot program to train those needing job skills.

“After five years it became completely self-sufficient,” Reed said. “We started out as a buy-back program where we just basically purchased scrap metals and aluminum cans from the public. And that quickly expanded into what we’re doing now. We take all kinds of different things other than just metals.”

Besides aluminum cans, the list of accepted items includes tin cans, glass bottles and jars, paper and cardboard.

The paper must be able to absorb water, which excludes wax paper and laminated paper.

People can also drop off used motor oil, which is then used to heat the recycling center.

“So that’s a tremendous help to us,” Reed said. “It really helps us with our energy costs tremendously.”

In 2006, the CAA opened the recycling building it now occupies at 1761 E. Main St. It also has 26 drop-off containers throughout Fairfield County.

Its funding comes partly from the Coshocton-Fairfield-Licking-Perry Solid Waste District and from the sale of recyclables it collects.

“We also do a commercial/institutional collection route,” Reed said. “We go to businesses, offices, schools, industries, and pick up all different type of recycled materials and bring it back here and process it.”

Processing includes going through each piece of material and depositing it into its own section in the building. For example, the recycle trucks look like a traditional garbage truck. When it comes back to the center, it drops its load onto the floor, where workers pull out glass, paper, metal, etc., piece by piece and by hand.

In addition to the trucks, the public is allowed to pull into the center to drop off recyclables.

Community Action also has a document destruction service in which a shredder truck will go to a business or home and shred unwanted documents. There is also a shredder in the recycling building. In both cases, the paper is recycled for other uses, including new paper.

Along with keeping garbage out of landfills, the CAA recycling program also provides jobs. Reed said the number of employees usually varies between 14 and 16.

“Plus, we get workers from the court system who may have mandatory volunteer service that they have to perform,” he said. “We also get people from (Fairfield County) Job and Family Services who are here to work a certain number of hours for their benefits. And this also gives them some job skills that they may never have had. We actually have wound up hiring some of them and have worked out very well.”

The recycling center is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 8 a.m. until noon on Saturday. The Saturday hours are only for the summer.

Visit www.fairfieldrecycles.org for more information at the CAA recycling program. It also has a Facebook page.

jbarron@lancastereaglegazette.com

740-681-4340

Twitter: @JeffDBarron