On April 30, the City of Charleston terminated its participation in the County-wide Residential Recycling Program.

Charleston participated in the program since it began in 1998 by the Coles County Regional Planning and Development Commission.

Over the years, in Charleston, the program re-located with its final drop off location at 815 Adkins Drive and expanded to collecting aluminum, glass, plastic and paper.

Jeff Lahr, Coles Count Solid Waste and Recycling Coordinator, said the program is a single stream program.

This allows participants to drop off their recycling in one bag.

The materials are then loaded into a long-haul trailer and sent to the Chicago Ridge Processing Center, which is an automated facility.

Lahr said this program had the city set out between $18,000 to $20,000 from its budget.

The city plans to use a part of the saved funds to participate in the County-wide Hazardous Waste Clean-up.

This event takes place every four to five years and the disposal cost can be up to $50,000.

“Some people are disappointed in the decision, you have some people that understand the reasoning of the mayor and most of the city council, and you have some people who are really indifferent,” Lahr said. “It was a fiscal decision combined with the fact that the haulers in the community now provide curbside recycling.”

David Morgan from Morgan Disposal Service said they have had a steady increase of people join their pick-up route, but not what they expected.

“We get a few more people every month, but the city had a list of about 1,000 signatures and we haven’t seen that, at least not yet,” Morgan said. “We aren’t discouraged though, it may pick up.”

Morgan said they have about 10 to 15% of the city’s recycle residents recycle with them.

Oakland, Humboldt and Ashmore still participate within the county program.

Kayleigh Zyskowski can be reached at 581-7942 or at kzyskowski@eiu.edu.