Mahoning recycling director suggests super site for Boardman

January 11, 2017 at 12:05a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning County’s recycling director recommended a drastic change in drop-off recycling in Boardman.

The county’s solid-waste policy committee, however, opted to try a less drastic solution for the problem of overflowing recyclables.

Lou Vega, county recycling director, suggested closing the current drop-off recycling sites at the Boardman Township hall and at the fire station at Shields Road and Lockwood Boulevard, which are regularly overflowing with recyclables between collections, and replacing them with a “super site” near Market Street and U.S. Route 224.

“They’re landlocked, and we cannot expand or add containers in order to meet the demand that each site needs, and so we are dealing on a weekly basis with materials being openly dumped on the ground, which eventually will turn into litter,” Vega said of the existing Boardman sites.

On Tuesday, the committee decided, however, to try a smaller potential remedy, namely replacing 8-cubic yard containers with 10 cubic-yard containers to increase capacity at the Shields and Lockwood site, where the overflow is greatest.

“The Shields and Lockwood site, in particular, and the Market Street [township hall] site are too small for the amount of residents they serve,” with seven 8-cubic yard containers each, Vega told the committee.

“The Shields site is in a residential neighborhood, and we certainly don’t want litter to be blowing around into people’s yards and into the woods next door,” Vega said.

Although Vega said a central site near Market and Route 224 would give the recycling program higher visibility, Robert McCracken, a committee member and a Goshen Township trustee, said many people will be reluctant to fight traffic to get there.

Patricia Sweeney, a committee member and county health commissioner, said it doesn’t seem to make sense to close the popular Shields and Lockwood site.

“This is interesting. This is such a heavily used site: Let’s close it. There’s something wrong there,” she said.

Vega said the county already has “super sites” on Raccoon Road in Austintown and Clingan Road in Poland, with the Raccoon Road site being the busiest of the county’s 28 publicly available drop-off recycling sites.

“Poland Township has one large megasite, and they seem to do fine,” Vega said.