LEXINGTON, KY - After a successful 10-week pilot program led to more than a ton of recyclable goods finding its way to Lexington's recycling center rather than the landfill, Speedway has expanded its recycling efforts from three to 16 stores around Lexington.
Started in May when two LFUCG Division of Waste Management interns, Elizabeth Rebmann and Natalie Cooke, approached Speedway's District Manager Bruce Whitaker about conducting a "trash audit" at the gas stations. The audit found that roughly 45 percent of what was being hauled from local Speedway locations to the landfill could be recycled.
To remedy that, Whitaker placed recycling containers alongside trash bins by the gas pumps.
"It didn't change anything for us; we take out the trash everyday anyway," Whitaker said at a Monday press conference with Mayor Jim Newberry to announce the expanded program.
According to statistics from LFUCG, Lexington's residents are throwing even more recyclable material into their trash cans at home than they had been tossing in Speedway's trash cans prior to the recycling program. Checks have found around three quarters of what Lexingtonians throw into their "Herbie" trash containers is recyclable. With the city's recycling processing center undergoing expansion in capacity, a greater push to throw items into blue "Rosie" recycling containers is soon to come.
The program at Speedway is expected to divert more than 330,000 pounds of goods away from the landfill and to the recycling center each year. Once the recycling center is up to its new capacity and a push for recycling is made, officials expect to see 80,000 pounds of goods each day going to recycling instead of the landfill, which would save $1.5 million annually in dumping fees, as well as bringing in revenue in the sale of recyclable goods.
In 2009, the city sold $1.4 million in recyclables, and the recycling center could generate nearly $4 million in recyclable sales in a few years with the expanded capacity and capabilities, according to the city's estimates.
Cheryl Taylor, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Quality, said the city will soon have equipment online that will allow residents to include glass in with their regular recycling rather than having to place them in separate bins, which is required now. That capability, which is aimed at make recycling easier, could be in place as early as this summer.