Polk recycling board visits new recycling facility in Western N.C.

Published 5:24 pm Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The Polk County Recycling Advisory Board with Holly Bullman (CRA) at the American Recycling Opening. (photo submitted by Jo Cahill)

The Polk County Recycling Advisory Board attended the grand opening of American Recycling of WNC near Asheville on Jan. 25. Attendees from the board included Cindy Walker, Polk County commissioner; Ryan Whitson, Polk County manager; Neal Hall, Polk County solid waste director; Joyce Hicks, Polk County recycling coordinator; Jennifer Patton, Polk County recycling route driver; Ernie Kan, Columbus City Council member and Polk resident volunteer board members Elaina Prevett (chair), Mary Parker and Jo Cahill.
The event was held at the new center at 1291 Sand Hill Rd., Candler, N.C. David Gantt, chair of the Buncombe County board of commissioners, and Terry Bellamy, mayor of Asheville, spoke at the event.
American Recycling of WNC has been open since Jan. 1, 2012. It is a full-service facility that serves Western North Carolina. It provides residential storage containers and pickup service and can accept single-stream (where recyclables are sorted at the recycling center), blue bag or sorted materials from haulers and municipalities.
So far, the facility is keeping 1,500 tons of materials out of landfills per month, with a goal of doubling this amount in five years. It is locally owned and operated.
In Polk County, the following materials were removed from the waste stream by recycling in the last year: 541.31 tons of mixed containers and paper, 307 tons of metal, 25 tons of mixed electronics and 3723 gallons of waste oil. 5.46 tons of light bulbs and ballasts were recycled in the last two years.
– article submitted
by Jo Cahill

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