Warren County Sanitation Department is curbing wrongful dumping.

During December’s meeting of the county Health and Welfare Committee, Sanitation director Josh Roberts informed commissioners that a problem exists with construction workers, businesses, restaurants and out-of-town residents wrongfully using the county’s centers rather than paying the charge at Southern Central or contracting with a trash pick-up service such as Tree City Trash. 

Members met Thursday night and Roberts says he’s making headway on the problem.

“On construction materials, we’ve really done well on that. On the restaurants, we are working with two right now to get them a private service into their restaurants. One is a little ways out and Republic will not run to him. Tree City Trash can’t service him because he has too much solid waste. So, we’re looking for other companies. The other restaurants, we got them straightened out with Tree City.”

The reaction was initially not favorable. 

“Everybody is coming around to the change, but their reaction was not good at first,” said Roberts. “We’ve handled people the best way we can. We’re trying to be nice. We are still taking trash from two restaurants as of right now until we find them somebody. We are working with them. We didn’t just drop them. If we had, they’d probably taken it onto a backroad and dumped it. Then, we’d be out there picking it up.” 

The update was given alongside with the department’s monthly report for January:

• Hauled 131 loads to Southern Central Services at a cost of $37,469

• Newsprint, one load, cost $298.

• Six loads of cardboard. No money received.

• Took 14 loads of metal to Southern Central Iron and Metal. Received $2,669.

•Recycled two loads of aluminum cans and received $316.

• Used batteries, collected 10. Received $90.

• Collection site for used tires received 2,101 passenger tires and 111 truck tires. 

• Accepted one ton of used oil, one ton of electronics, three tons of plastic.

During January, recycled and money coming back to the county was $3,075. Recycling was 13 percent for the month. 

“We would like that number to be a lot higher,” said Roberts of the percentage. “However, that is really good considering how recycling is right now.”

Health and Welfare Committee members accepted the monthly report. It will be sent to the Warren County Commission for its review Feb. 18.