The Caldwell County Recycling Center will be switching to a shorter winter operating schedule at mid-month.
Beginning with the week of Nov. 16, the recycling center, located at 400 Eagon St., will be open two days a week: from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays and from 8 a.m. until noon on Saturdays.
The center is currently open Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, but slower traffic on Mondays has led to the decision to switch to a two-day schedule until the spring, Solid Waste Coordinator James Oliver said Monday.
Apart from the schedule change, the center will continue to operate as normal.
Center employee Val Wynn will be on-site to assist residents who need help depositing their recyclables.
The amount and variety of items the recycling center accepts is substantial — more than the average citizen may expect, Oliver said.
Commonly-recycled items like newsprint, office paper, plastic bags, clear and colored glass containers, cardboard and aluminum and steel cans are all accepted on-site.
So are books, magazines and catalogs, all types of batteries, used motor oil, computers, TV sets, electronic items and large appliances — stoves, refrigerators, washers, dryers, water heaters and more, Oliver said.
Many of the items collected are taken to the Western Kentucky Correctional Complex, the operations center of the Regional Recyling Corporation, formed by Caldwell County and five other counties in the early 1990s.
Inmates at the WKCC site handle the labor of sorting and baling cardboard and cans for sale to larger recycling operations.
The corporation recently purchased a glass crusher for the WKCC campus to turn the bottles and jars brought in into a fine, pebble-like aggregate.
The crusher is currently awaiting some repair, leading to an accumulation of glass at the recycling center.
Once the crusher is back in operation, the glass will be removed from the local center and transported to WKCC.
Other goods, like the electronics and appliances, are sold to other contractors.
Last week, for example, Oliver hauled off close to 5.5 tons of appliances to a Fredonia salvage dealer and received $667.50 — “all money that goes back to the recycling center,” he said.
Those funds are used to expand the center’s capabilities, fund its staffing and maintain the facilities.
“We want to make it as nice for the people and keep it as clean as possible,” Oliver said.
Funds are also used to promote recycling in the community, both through educational efforts in schools and by providing recycling bins in public buildings and at outdoor sites.
Funds from the county fiscal court also support the center. “The county is good about it,” said Oliver. “They put a lot of money in this place.”
Being able to collect the items it does has also cut down on the amount of illegal dumping in the county — particularly in the areas of appliances and electronics.
More than 15 tons of electronic scrap was collected last year, and another 8 tons have been taken in this year.
“By taking them down here, it has saved me from having to clean a lot up from off the roads,” he said. “I find very little on the roads since we’ve started this.” (Litter, though, continues to remain a problem, he noted.)
Anyone with questions or seeking more information about the county’s recycling program can call the center at (270) 365-5199.
Meanwhile, the center will continue to accept the community’s recyclable items.
“If it’s got a recycling logo on it, we can pretty well take it,” Oliver said.
“This center down here, I think, has been a blessing for the whole county.”
