County Residents Respond Well to Recycling Events

SNOW HILL – Two specialized spring recycling events hosted by Worcester County once again succeeded, bringing in similar amounts of electronics, household hazardous waste, and used tires as in previous years.

“It seems like each one of these every year gets larger and larger,” said Worcester County Commissioner Judy Boggs.

The scrap tire event, held April 19 at the Worcester County landfill, saw 213 vehicles, which turned in 3,906 scrap tires, or 125.5 tons. Passenger tires made up the majority of the haul at 3,510 dropped off, with 243 heavy truck tires turned in, 120 agriculture, 27 light truck tires, and six reported as other.

According to Public Works Director John Tustin, the event keeps the worn out tires from being dumped in streams and ditches and along road verges. The used tires turned in are also kept out of the landfill.

The County Commissioners would like to add a fall scrap tire recycling day, said Commission president Virgil Shockley, but the event is funded by the state of Maryland.

On April 26, the Household Hazardous Waste and Electronics Recycling day was held at the West Ocean City Park and Ride, with 286 vehicles in attendance. The public dropped off 14,000 pounds of defunct and unwanted electronic equipment for recycling.

Ninety-three residents dropped off household hazardous waste at the April 2008 event. A total of 8,640 pounds of household hazardous waste, like paint, herbicides, and cleaning products were brought in.

There were 358 pieces of electronic equipment turned in by 193 cars including 63 CPUs, 43 televisions, 42 computer monitors, 29 VCRs, 27 printers, 19 scanners, 9 keyboards, and 47 miscellaneous items.

At the 2007 spring household hazardous waste and electronics recycling event, only 10,380 pounds of electronic equipment was dropped off, totaling 397 items, and 10,180 pounds of hazardous household waste.

The drop-off event was not held in the southern end of Worcester County as well, unlike previous years, due to low attendance.

“It’s wonderful the residents are responding instead of putting it in the regular trash,” said Commissioner Louise Gulyas after hearing the recycling event report at the Tuesday Worcester County Commissioner meeting.