Clinton County was approved for a recycling program grant last spring, and by early fall the new recycling center, located in the county owned building off Clinton Street in East Albany has been up and running. If the numbers included in the yearly Solid Waste Management report released earlier this month is any indication, the program has been, and continues to be, quite successful.

Clinton County looked at other areas, including neighboring Wayne County, which gave some assistance in getting the local program up and running, that have recycling operations and participation by local businesses and residents alike have at least met, if not exceeded, expectations.

Grant money was used to get the program started, and also to purchase all the equipment needed to operate the center, which stays busy every day in collecting and disposing of recyclable items, including white goods and used batteries.

Solid Waste Coordinator Rick Stearns presented the annual Solid Waste report to fiscal court at its most recent regular meeting. The numbers are total amounts of recyclable items collected county-wide from the 2015 report:

Three tons of aluminum cans; 125 tons of cardboard; 10 lead acid batteries collected; six tons of metal, ferrous (steel, white goods); six tons of non-ferrous metal (aluminum, copper, scrap brass, stainless steel); five tons each newsprint; paper (office); paper (white); paper (mixed residential); two tons each of three different grade plastics and 64 tires.

During the year, a $19,807 grant was obtained for litter abatement and the grant for recycling was $162,000, plus a $4,000 waste tire collection grant.

Waste Management expenditures included $8,791.76 for disposal costs; $1,682.50 for litter cleanups; $116,389.76 for recycling costs and $4,000 personnel.

The recycle center picks up recyclable items or items can be taken to the recycle center.

Items accepted include: aluminum cans, electronic scrap, metal, paper, plastic, cardboard, lead acid batteries, newsprint, and steel cans.

The county has voted to apply for another smaller scale recycle grant that would be used for additional equipment needed to operate and maintain the recycle center.

Another statistic noted in the report was the percent of local residents who participate in trash collection pick-up service.

Although there are three trash hauling franchises in the county that provide county-wide collection service, only 3,815 households were members of solid waste collection services, or 49.54 percent, meaning just over half of local residents do not use trash collection services to pick up their trash.

The latter statistic is somewhat of a concern to local officials, as some of the trash not picked up by garbage collection services may end up in an illegal dump, or simply roadside litter, a problem the county is trying to address.

Several illegal dump sites are currently being cleaned up, small and large, but the problem of illegal dumping and littering in ongoing.