Carbon County Trash

No, I’m not talking about the meth lab operators in Lehighton and Lansford, I’m talking about the trash you put out each week.  

About two months ago the Carbon County Commissioners decided the county could no longer afford its recycling program and eliminated the department that supervised the program.  In the past county residents could drive to the blue bins and deposit paper, cardboard, plastics #1 and #2, tin and aluminum cans, and bottles.  

I might note here that most of the boroughs in Carbon County did have their own programs.  The County program was mainly for the townships, and evidently some borough residents were annoyed that their taxes helped to pay for a program their residents did not use.  

In the past few weeks I and other volunteers called every Carbon County municipality--township and borough--to ascertain whether or not they had a recycling program.  The good news is that almost all of the municipalities either had pre-existing programs or were scrambling to create new programs.  Some townships have gone to single-stream recycling.

We did find major problems, however.  First of all, there were a variety of programs with different parameters.  Secondly, electronic recycling was problematic; some municipalities advise their residents to drive to Walnutport (in Lehigh County) to dispose of their electronic waste.  Some items, like tires, are taken if residents pay a fee.  No municipality takes toxic waste.  

Household toxins are a real problem.  Right now I have at least 75 flashlight batteries in a bin in my basement.  I don’t want to put them in the garbage, but I don’t know where to take them.  What do you do with old insecticide, or old half-full paint cans?

The volunteers proposed that one of the townships, perhaps Penn Forest or Franklin, call a conference on recycling, where various solutions could be discussed and information could be exchanged.  My belief is that most citizens really want to do the right thing, if they only knew what the right thing was.