Recycling continues to grow in Fayette County

Recycling is not a passing fad in Fayette County.

Area residents quickly latched onto the idea of turning in recyclable materials when the Fayette County Recycling Committee offered its first collection last fall, and participation in the monthly collections has continued to grow.

“It is really going over strong,” said Karen Sanders of the Fayette County Soil and Water Conservation District, one of the people who got the recycling efforts off the ground.

“It’s going over better than I could ever have thought it would be in Vandalia,” said

Sanders, who does the majority of the work involved in finding businesses to accept recycled materials.

The recycling committee is currently offering collections from 9 a.m.-noon on the second Saturday of each month in the parking lot of the former Kroger building, though it continues to look for an area that can serve as a permanent location.

On those Saturdays, the committee accepts all types of paper, plastic, cardboard, books and magazines, tin cans, aluminum and white goods, including refrigerators, washers and dryers.

Last month alone, the committee accepted enough items to fill 44 large boxes, with the total weighing close to 8,800 pounds, Sanders said.

The committee also continues to offer the collection of electronic items from 1-5 p.m. every Wednesday at the USDA building at the southwest corner of Third and Johnson streets in Vandalia.

“We’ve taken a lot of different types of items,” Sanders said, “but we seem to take a lot of computers, monitors and large televisions,” she said.

Not only do a lot of area residents show up on collection days, but they also call Sanders about the program.

“We get several phone calls a day from people asking about information on the eRecycling or the items that we will be taking on the regular recycling days,” she said.

Last month, the load hauled away from Fayette County included two truckloads of recyclable items from Cain’s Pharmacy in Vandalia.

Loaded in the bed of two pickup trucks were bottles from the pharmacy’s suppliers, as well as cardboard from shipments to the business.

The idea of turning in the bottles and cardboard came from Renee Willms, who is one of the members of the Fayette County Recycling Committee.

In fact, Willms is one of the individuals who came up with the idea of offering regular recycling collections.

“I wanted us to have something like this so we could keep all of these things out of our landfills,” Willms said. “Someday, we’re going to run out of a place to put all of our trash.”

“I had written a couple of letters to the editor, and I got a lot of response,” said Willms.

“Mary Fulton and I were both interested in recycling, and we got hooked up with Karen (Sanders),” she said. “Then, the people at the Extension office also got involved.”

Willms, Fulton, Sanders and Tony Pals of the SWCD office, Ginger Boas and the staff of the Fayette County Extension Office and John Sanders serve on the committee.

A couple of months ago, Willms realized that Cain’s could be a significant contributor on the collection Saturdays.

“I’ve been recycling for years, and so has (pharmacist) Brooke Miller,” Willms said.

“We started seeing how much trash we took out each night, and realized how much of it could be recycled,” she said. “The employees here have been real good about separating the recyclable items from the other trash,” she said.

But even Willms didn’t realize how much recyclables the business accumulates. “I had no idea how much we had until we started setting it aside in the garage,” she said.

Willms also noted that customers of the pharmacy can participate in the recycling efforts. When they’ve emptied their pill bottles, customers can peel off the labels (to remove all personal information) and turn the bottles in on collection Saturdays.

In addition to seeking a permanent home for the Saturday collections, the committee is looking for volunteers to man the collection site.

So far, much of the work has been done by the youth group at John Sanders’ church, Oak Valley.

“The kids from the church love to work on the recycling days,” Karen Sanders said. “That is one of their joys in life, I truly believe.

“John has so inspired them to always do the right things that they wouldn’t want to miss a day,” she said.

But that doesn’t mean that others in the community can’t get involved.

“We’re always looking for volunteers,” Karen Sanders said.

Individuals interested in participating in the recycling efforts, or having questions about the program, can contact Sanders at the SWCD office, 283-1095, ext. 3.