GALION, Ohio — The Galion Parent Teacher Organization is one of the many groups throughout Crawford County dedicated to collecting items for the county’s solid waste management recycling facility.
The primary reason? To keep recyclables out of the landfill, nestled between Bucyrus and Galion on a plot of land north of the Old Lincoln Highway.
The landfill has another 17 years before the area is filled, according to Director of Crawford County Solid Waste Management District Brian Rockwell. To extend its life, the district began their own recycling program 15 years ago.
“Recycling keeps stuff out of the landfill,” Rockwell said. “If we recycle, we can keep our landfill for longer.”
The district’s website advocates for recycling through numerous programs offered to schools and other organizations. There are seven permanent recycling collection sites, seven cites that collect on Saturdays, five sites that collect monthly and three schools (Wayside Christian, Galion and Wynford schools) that serve as collection sites on a regular basis.
The schools are rewarded for the recycled goods they collect, between $1,200 and $1,500 every quarter. The funds are used to benefit different groups in those respective schools.
Heather Downing has volunteered for Galion’s recycling program for years. She first started when her daughter entered kindergarten at Galion — now her daughter is finishing up her senior year of college.
“It helps the environment,” Downing said simply. “You just don’t realize how much you save on your trash until you recycle.”
Downing arrived at Galion Middle School’s parking lot 30 minutes early on Thursday afternoon. She knows every second and fourth Thursday of the month, from 4 to 7 p.m., she’s needed to help sort the different recyclables.
“We get a lot of stuff. This whole truck will be basically full — we get packed,” said Downing as she sorted through plastics, cardboard and newspapers.
The collection sites each have a trailer of bins, each designated for different types of plastics, and a semi truck trailer designated for different papers.
Promptly at 4 p.m., Galion residents drove up to the trailers and either Downing or volunteer Rob Farson transferred the recyclables from their vehicle to one of the trailers.
Farson has volunteered nearly as long as Downing. Other volunteers, like Jodi Webb, have done it longer. Occasionally, different school groups help with the sorting, too.
Downing said even her 6-year-old nephew helps out with sorting from time to time.
Those who help sort are rewarded with a cut of the money from the solid waste district.
Rockwell cuts the checks, but the Chicago Board of Trade sets the prices of recycled goods. The CBOT recognizes a variety of material. For a list of acceptable items, click here.
Rockwell said recycling used to be more profitable before the market crashed in 2008. Before the crash, cardboard went for $280 per ton. Now, it goes for $40 per ton. Still, he said, recycling makes more sense than throwing trash into the landfill when at all possible.
“There’s no charge with recycling,” Rockwell said.
Dumping trash into the landfill is another story.
According to Crawford County Landfill, which is leased out to Santek Environmental by Crawford County, construction debris costs $21 per ton to dump. All other trash is $49 per ton.
For more information on when and from where the recycling collection sites operate, visit the Crawford County Solid Waste Management District’s website or call 419-562-4169.
