SMETHPORT — As a virtual co-presenter Wednesday to the annual conference of the Professional Recyclers of Pennsylvania in Camp Hill, McKean County Planning Director Jeremy Morey spoke about the success of the county’s recycling keycard program.
Justin Lund, who took over as the county’s recycling coordinator in 2016 after the recycling program was discontinued for some years, played a key role in the popularity of the current system as he assisted municipalities and schools in implementing programs that reduced various types of waste. Additionally, he also was instrumental in securing the necessary funding.
Today, Morey’s office administers the McKean County Solid Waste Plan that was updated in 2015. “That document specifically pointed to the need for the county to seriously address recycling, or the lack thereof, in our community,” Morey noted.
An earlier state study from about four years ago showed that McKean and Greene counties tied with per capita recycling rates of fewer than 50 pounds annually, a very low rate, indeed. In fact, it was among the lowest in the state.
Speaking to the conference attendees via Zoom video conferencing, Morey said, “With the previous system, the old recycling bins were constantly filled with garbage and overfilled to the point that garbage and recyclables would be scattered around the bins. We had a very high contamination of our recycling stream and knew that we needed a way to ‘police’ the use during off hours.”
Justin Lund, who took over as the county’s recycling director in 2016 after the recycling program was discontinued for some years, played a key role educating the public about the benefits of recycling. He was successful in securing much of the funding for the current keycard system in use at the recycling facility along U.S. Route 6 west of Smethport.
“Along with the construction of the new recycling center, we also installed fencing, lights, security cameras, bought our own 40-yard recycling bins, recycling compactor and installed a keycard reader for 24/7 access,” Morey explained.
To judge public interest, Morey said that Mike Barnard of the 3G Garden polled people at the McKean County Fair to see if they would be interested in buying a keycard when they became available. “We didn’t receive a very positive response from those people,” Morey recalled, “but we knew that was what we wanted to do and it would be the right system for keeping out garbage.”
Soon, however, the cards became popular.
In October 2018 alone, 85 recycling keycards were sold. The fee for the first year is $10, with renewals costing five dollars. “To date, we have sold 303 cards, with an average of 75 to 80 people using the recycling center during normal business hours, with just one violation of the rules when the site first opened,” Morey reported. “It has been a great success that we would like to replicate elsewhere in the county.
“We have heard only praise on how well the new system looks and works.”
Ashley Dobak, the consultant with Barton and Loguidice, the firm that handled the keycard recycling system, was also a co-presenter about the project.
