Several local residents showed up at Tuesday’s Crawford County Commission meeting to speak in support of Southeast Kansas Recycling, Inc., which recently requested funding from the county to keep its operations up and running.
Bert Patrick, of Pittsburg, said that recycling reduces the amount of trash that has to go into the landfill.
“The bulk of those items that we do take to the Recycling Center are non-biodegradable, and those items as a consequence are just going to be in that landfill for decades and decades,” Patrick said, “and long-term we don’t know the actual effect that that does have in terms of contaminating the soil or in terms of affecting the water table.”
Patrick added that the Southeast Kansas Recycling Center provides employment for some county residents. It’s “not a huge number of people, you know, who actually work there, but it does provide some employment for them,” he said. Jim Brumfield of Pittsburg said that recycling locally has an impact on the broader environment.
“I’m not going to go into a lot of examples about what’s happening in the world, but I do think that this is a global effort which it is part of my duty to contribute to, it’s not just a habit,” Brumfield said.
“I would be in favor of a tax, a small tax to help sustain this effort,” he added.
(Read more: Pittsburg Morning Sun)