Highland County Board of Commissioners President Jeff Duncan said there have been discussions to make a centralized recycling location in Highland County during the weekly meeting Wednesday.
He said there is a pilot program in Fayette County where there is a gated centralized location and the county has had discussions about doing something similar in Highland County. He said that the county is “pretty large” and that it might take two locations.
Whitney Bradley, a representative from the Highland County Community Action Organization (HCCAO) and working to take over the recycling program, said that she agreed with Duncan’s assessment that there might need to be two locations. She said that was because she knows there is a concern in the program that if there’s a centralized mega-site location near Hillsboro, it could alienate portions of areas south of Hillsboro as well as Sinking Spring. She said she knows those communities feel that way because they’re rural and get overlooked, and the program wants to make sure that doesn’t happen.
In other news, Bradley said that HCCAO had its tire and electronics recycling event on Sept. 25 and that “it went very well.” She said the event received items from both the townships as well as community members. She said the townships were able to bring tires they picked up from the streets to have them recycled at not cost. She said the event received 688 passenger tires, 36 truck tires and nine tractor tires.
Bradley, following a question from commissioner David Daniels about whether appliances like refrigerators were able to be recycled at the event, said they were not. She said she didn’t think the company they used took them, but that it was something the program was open to if it was something they wanted to explore.
She also said that HCCAO placed two recycling bins in the Rocky Fork Lake campground area this week.
Bradley said that HCCAO reimplemented its school education program. She said that she has visited all but one fifth grade classroom in Highland County and reached about 200 students. She said the program has consisted of identifying and defining solid waste, determining what natural solid waste is and what man-made solid waste it, how to recycle, and where the recycling bins are in the county. She said the students did activities on sorting recyclables.
Bradley also said that districtwide, fifth-grade students are readying for the Highland County Billboard Contest. She said the contest will give students the opportunity to design a billboard. One student will be chosen as the winner and be featured in the newspaper.
Bradley said HCCAO is also working on Earth Day activities for all the schools in the county.
She said that she or the recycling program can be contacted at [email protected] or 937-393-3458.
In other news, Duncan said that preliminary sales tax numbers came in and that they’re “hanging in there” in terms of staying above last year’s numbers.
He said the numbers were about a 12 percent increase over the same time last year and that the increase looks to be holding true across the state except for the bigger counties or cities. Bill Fawley, Highland County auditor, said he thinks most of those are having trouble because they’re the ones with shopping malls.
Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.
