Area residents wishing to rid themselves of recyclables may have to drive a little farther than normal.

Mercer County Commissioners recently decided to close the local depot at Grove City Wal-Mart, after planning to distribute the depots more evenly across the county. The bins were removed the week of June 9.

The commissioners – who took over the recycling program last year after choosing to disband the Mercer County Solid Waste Authority, which previously ran the program – took a look at recycling across the county, and decided the depots weren’t serving the greatest amount of residents, said Carmen Reichard, county recycling coordinator with Mercer County Regional Planning Commission.

They chose to close the Pine Township site, and replaced it a few weeks ago with a new site at the Pymatuning Township municipal building. Last year, three depots were closed, in Hermitage at Shenango Valley Mall, and in Sandy Lake and Jamestown. There are now four other depots: At Greenville Wal-Mart in Hempfield Township; and at the municipal buildings in Wilmington, Perry and Findley townships.

Grove City area residents still have two options, Reichard noted; they can drop off items at the Findley Township depot, about 6 miles out of town; or at Tri-County Industries, which has its own recycling bins, about 3 miles away.

“There was a lot of use at that site, there,” Reichard said of the former Pine Township depot. “There is with most all of the sites.”

She noted that, along with their plans to rearrange the recycling depots, the commissioners wanted to have new bins constructed. The former, well-known blue bins were on loan from the Lawrence County program, she said.

Recycling will likely become more and more important, as environmental issues continue to arise, and the commissioners have plans in place to help the county recycling program to evolve with the times.

They hope, Reichard noted, to begin a program in which each municipality would have its own contract to collect recyclables, as each does for trash pick-up.

“It puts (the cost of the program) back on the taxpayers, as well,” she said.

Currently, the county uses a reimbursement grant to partially fund the coordination of the program, she said.

The county contracted last year with Tri-County for three years to visit each site twice a week to pick up the recyclables, at a cost of about $150,000, according to a past story in The Herald.

The recycling program “is a cost to the county; I don’t know that residents realize that,” Reichard said.

Now, with the depots located at community buildings, it puts some of the responsibility for maintaining the sites onto the residents who use them, she added. It also enables township officials to keep an eye on the depots.

The depots provide a free service to residents who want to do a good thing for the environment, but they also attract those who just want a convenient place to drop their unwanted stuff.

“There’s always the instance where people come in and drop stuff off and it’s not recyclable, it’s just garbage,” Reichard said. The depot “belongs to the residents, and it’s their job to keep it looking good.”

Overall, the county recycling program has been a success, Reichard added, and she hopes it will continue to be so.

“It’s very well used,” she said. “I think it is (going to be used even more) because, eventually there will be bans at landfills on certain items, not too far in the future. At that point there, people will be expected to recycle.

“If (an item) can be utilized to make other products, that’s a plus.”