Area residents are responding to the message to “recycle right.” In 2019, there were 29,692 tons of single stream recyclables hauled to the Brown County Recycling Transfer Station; that’s an increase of more than 600 tons from 2018.
“It’s exciting to see that residents are understanding the need to protect our environment by recycling right,” said Mark Walter, Brown County Resource Recovery Business Manager. “That directly translates into more people recycling as well as understanding the recycling options available in Brown County.” Here’s a breakdown on all of the materials collected and processed by Resource Recovery during 2019:
• Materials collected at the Brown County Recycling Transfer Station come from residents, municipalities and commercial users and are then brought to a single stream Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Outagamie County. The MRF is operated as part of the three county regional solid waste agreement between Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago Counties; known as the BOW. The Tri-County MRF, which is one of the largest publicly owned and operated MRFs in the country, processed more than 103,000 tons of recyclables in 2019.
• The Brown County Food Waste & Organics Drop-Off Program continues to grow; collecting 31,200 pounds of material in 2019, with more than 230 households participating in the program an increase of nearly 50 household over 2018.
• The Hazardous Material Recovery (HMR) facility collected 811,380 pounds of hazardous materials which were either recycled or properly disposed of including material from both in-county and out-of-county collections.
• Materials collected at the Solid Waste Transfer Station are compacted and transported to the BOW landfill with nearly 163,700 tons of refuse transported and another 59,640 tons of refuse delivered directly to the BOW landfill. While Brown County Resource Recovery also saw an increase in materials at the Solid Waste Transfer Station it had success in continuing to divert material away from landfilling. Hundreds of tons of appliances, shingles and tired were recycled in 2019.
“We are always appreciative of the efforts made by local residents and business to properly dispose of waste and recyclables,” added Walter. “The numbers show people take their responsibility to our community and the environment seriously.”
