Lexington, KY - As LFUCG plans events for national 'America Recycles Day,' officials reminded residents Monday how recycling does more than help the planet, it saves and makes money for the city.
"By recycling residents saved about $700,000 in landfill fees and generated $2.4 million in revenue," last year according to Cheryl Taylor, former commissioner of the Department of Environmental Quality and Public Works.
By increasing the amount of recycled goods, the city not only gets more money by selling the goods that can be repurposed, but it also saves on the cost to pay a third party to truck Lexington's waste to landfills outside of the county.
"Our garbage gets taken out to different landfills that Republic (Services) owns," and has for around a decade, Taylor said. "They have at least three landfills. Some of it goes to Mt. Sterling, some of it to Clark County."
The city uses the Old Frankfort Pike Landfill site for much of its solid waste related functions, though that landfill has not itself collected garbage since closing in 1977. Its replacement on Haley Pike in the eastern part of Fayette County stopped taking garbage years ago and has only functioned for construction, demolition, debris (CDD) since, Taylor said.
The CDD function at Haley is now in its final weeks of operation as Taylor said the city is planning to close it down at the end of next month.
"It is almost full and it will stop operation Dec. 31st. What we're trying to do... is to try to find the best deal we can to... find an alternate place to take things and also try to figure out how to recycle more," she said.
The city is close to issuing a Request For Proposals that Taylor is hoping will "buy us a year" so LFUCG can look into establishing other options.
"What we'd really like to do long term is have a CDD recycling center in town," she said as there is a market for many of the used materials currently brought to the dump. There are a few sites along Old Frankfort Pike on existing city property Taylor thinks would be suitable, and affordable to convert.
Once operational it will afford LFUCG the same savings on paying a third party to truck and dump the debris and provide a new revenue stream for the city.
In recognition of America Recycles Day LFUCG's Department of Environmental Quality and Public Works and the Keep Lexington Beautiful Commission are sponsoring a free paper shred event for county residents on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 1631 Old Frankfort Pike. Eight CINTAS mobile shredding trucks, double last year's number, will be on hand to shred residents documents. The event is limited to county residents with no more than 10 boxes of documents to shred. The event is for households only, no businesses. The paper is not to be in plastic binders, but staples, paper envelopes and paper clips are OK.