Back in business: WICAP takes over recycling center

By: 
Steve Lyon
Officials with WICAP planned to reopen the Evelyn Stover Recycling Center in Weiser this week after getting the green light from Weiser city officials.
 City council members offered their support for the nonprofit taking over the center operations during a meeting with Steve Morningstar, WICAP’s community service coordinator in Washington and Adams counties.
 He said WICAP would like to run the recycling operation for a year to see how it goes as a service to the community. 
 “We appreciate you doing this,” Weiser Mayor Diana Thomas said.
 The recycling center has been closed since the Weiser River Resource Council ended its management on Sept. 26, citing the difficulty of finding volunteers and other issues. The WRRC operated the center for the past four years and stepped in when the local Kiwanis Club disbanded and could no longer run it. 
 Morningstar said he plans to obtain help from volunteers, people sentenced to community service work and a state-funded 20-hour “experience works” employee to run the center. The work at the center includes baling cardboard, using a forklift to move bins around and tidying up the facility.
 WICAP, which has offices in a half-dozen counties, has workman’s comp and liability insurance in place to cover workers at the recycling center. WICAP will also rent a portable toilet and find a way to keep it secure from vandalism at the center.
 City councilman Dan Randleman noted that the city has paid the monthly electric bill and provided free trash receptacles and pickup at the recycling center and requested that to continue for WICAP. The city council approved and also agreed to help out with keeping the forklift operating. 
 In response to a question from a council member about collecting cardboard around town, Morningstar said he plans to work with the school district and businesses to get their cardboard for recycling. Right now, WICAP does not plan to go out and pick up cardboard.
 Morningstar earlier this month met with Washington County commissioners to seek their support for running the center. Before he approached the city and county, Morningstar took the idea to the WICAP board for approval.
 Neither the city or county wanted to run the recycling center, which informally is a city and county project, after the WRRC left at the end of September. The city owns the property the center sits on and a forklift. The county owns the canopy roof over the recycling center.
 The recycling center will continue to accept numerous items, including cardboard, paper, magazines, paper, tin cans, aluminum cans and other recyclables.  
 Until January, the center had also been taking plastic milk and water bottles, but they were no longer accepted when the domestic market for plastic items disappeared.
 Morningstar said he is optimistic that things could change and there will once again be a recycling market for plastic.

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