A labor shortage has all but shuttered the only recycling facility in Shawnee County, with 90% of its materials being processed elsewhere.
Since mid- to late October, Waste Management of Kansas has taken all but about 10% of recyclables from the local Materials Recycling Facility by truck to be processed instead at the MRF it operates in Kansas City, Kan., said Lisa Disbrow, a spokeswoman for that company.
“Mixed paper” items, such as office paper, are the only recyclables still being processed at the local MRF at Rolling Meadows Recycling and Disposal Facility, 7351 N.W. US-75 highway, she said.
The change hasn’t affected Shawnee County’s recycling operations, said Bill Sutton, director of the county’s solid waste department.
Shawnee County residents aren’t incurring any additional costs, because the county’s contract with Waste Management calls for the county to pay a fixed processing rate, Sutton said.
Waste Management is consequently absorbing any additional operating costs, including expenses to transport materials to Kansas City, Kan., he said.
Staffing long an issue at local facility
Waste Management has historically found it difficult to adequately staff the Shawnee County MRF, where much of the work is physically challenging, Disbrow said.
Staffing the facility has particularly been a problem recently, she said.
Waste Management is monitoring the labor market to determine if it might be able at some point to go back to processing more recyclables at the Shawnee County MRF, Disbrow said.
Shawnee County operates a curbside recycling program, through which it picks up recyclables every other week from bins located at the homes of customers.
That program had 47,920 residential recycling customers as of Tuesday, Sutton said.
The fee for recycling is included in the total solid waste fee for customers of Shawnee County Solid Waste, he said.
Recyclables picked up by the solid waste department are taken to the $7.5 million MRF that Waste Management dedicated at Rolling Meadows in December 2012.
The following month, Shawnee County began operating its curbside recycling program.
Here are the materials that can be recycled
Items that can be turned in include office paper, phone books, corrugated cardboard, junk mail, magazines, catalogs, aluminum cans, cereal boxes, cracker boxes, tin cans, clean aluminum foil, plastic buckets, plastic bottles, plastic tubs, paper sacks and shredded paper placed in clear plastic bags, according to the county website.
DIsbrow encouraged residents to visit that website to make sure the items they’re putting in their recycling bins are acceptable for recycling.
