To all the horrors that keep me awake nights – poison attacks in Syria, the NSA reading and correcting this as I write it, the awful absence of LED lights on the Prince Theater because of an evil conspiracy by one meanie, anonymous and probably foreign-born town employee who drives a damn Prius – I must regretfully add another.
How am I going to recycle?
It gets harder and harder. Haven’t you noticed?
I don’t understand why isn’t this a big issue around Chestertown. Now a crisis is at hand, and plastic is piling up in the kitchen with tin cans underfoot, and nobody’s doing anything. Maybe because of the way it sneaked up.
First thing that happened, the greenie town of Chestertown got rid of its recycling facility on Washington Avenue few years back. I’m not sure of all the reasons, which were various and complex, but my suspicion is it had something to do with Washington College not wanting those ugly igloos adjacent to its increasingly beautiful campus.
No problem, not right away. Queen Anne’s had recycling just over the bridge on Fay Road, so Chestertowners could sneak across the bridge in broad daylight and dump their stuff.
But Queen Anne’s County didn’t like this. Its official policy is for Chestertown to provide the services it doesn’t bother to do for its own residents around Kingstown, not the other way around. So one day this spring, with no forewarning and beneath the notice of local news outlets, those Fay Road igloos vanished.
They reappeared pretty soon, at the bowling lanes a couple miles south of the bridge, presumably far enough down the road to discourage the trashy Chestertown people. It seemed to be working. The bins didn’t overflow there so frequently as previously. There weren’t so many Priuses clogging 213.
But then, again, one day: gone.
Something called the Maryland Environmental Service maintains that the bowling alley suddenly demanded that it get those igloos off its lot.
And now, to recycle requires a weekly planner and gallons of gasoline. The nearest place in Queen Anne’s County to drop off your bottles and cans is at Church Hill, on Price Station Road. But it’s open only on Thursdays and Saturdays. You can go all the way to Millington, to the Glanding Transfer Station. But it too is open only two days a week, Fridays and Saturdays.
In Kent County there’s the Nicholson dump, open Mondays, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, but it is a half dozen miles from town. Or you can pay for a private service that by your house once a week. Or, you can say the hell with it, stuff recyclables in your garbage.
So here we lamentably are. I’m not saying this situation is really of the magnitude of the slaughters in Egypt and Syria, the melting of Greenland, famine in Africa or the agitation of the sorely pressed board of The Prince.
Just suggesting we shine a little LED light on it.
D Lamotte says
Amen! My back porch is being to look like a regional drop-off facility except it is all our own family’s plastic/paper/wine and beer bottles. Very embarrassing how much we consume!!
At least in some areas one can cash in on the liquor bottles….
Joe Diamond says
Here is a short term fix!
Those green wood boxes…one at Lewis Dairy and one in back of Freddies (former Smilies – first LQ store on left in OA county)…….the management of those bins says just dump recyclables in…no need to sort…..They just pick the stuff up and make their money on the discarded materials. While this doesn’t seem possible for now it is ok. The green wood bins are easier to open and dumping in unsorted cans of mixed borrles and cans is EZ.
Other reading indicates it is a mistake to attempt to do a for-profit recycle operation in rural areas because the volume just isn’t there.
So go for it until it is gone….Break down cardboard boxes.
Joe
Nita Wieczoreck says
I couldn’t agree more. Bring back our recycling bins! First we lost our curbside pick-up, then to add insult to injury, we lost our igloos. We had bins at the Pomona Store that were removed to save the cost of sending a truck to empty them. The store did not mind them being there. The Kent County Commissioners obviously do not support recycling.
Stephan Sonn says
I use Nicholson and the Worton recycle drop.
Both are just 5 minutes away.
Lucky me.
Joe Pinder says
The county facility in Worton (at the old roller rink) has those drop off igloos. Just 5 miles or less from C-town.
John Vail, Worton says
. . . and there are bins for cardboard, too!
faith wilson says
You can also recycle at Infinity Recycling, just of Rt. 544, which is closer to town than Price. They pick up my recycling (i live outside of Fairlee) for a well-worth it $6 per month. Although I am married to a trashman (our company is We’re Talking Trash), Ford Schumann who owns Infinity Recycling is my brother in law, so our family talks about trash A LOT!! But having a big giant trash truck parked in my yard doesn’t keep us from recycling, we still recycle (and compost) more than we throw away. You can always call Infinity and find out if they pick up where you live, if you don’t live in town. $6 is well worth it for twice a month pick-up, roughly the cost of a gallon and a half of gas, and you are supporting a LOCAL hard working non-profit business.
faith wilson says
And just a reminder…..curb-side recycling was never free, it was paid for by tax-payer’s money……