A new recycling group asked the county for help transporting items to an outside facility.
Commissioners said they wanted to think about the request for a week.
Allen County Recycling Inc. recently applied for 501(c)3 non-profit status and appointed a board of directors. The group attended Tuesday’s commission meeting with Alan Weber, a former county counselor, as its spokesperson.
Weber outlined the history: Iola Rotary previously offered recycling for the community but it grew larger than the group could handle, and they ended the program a few months ago.
Since then, a group of friends and volunteers started their own recycling effort.
“That created some friction because it was privately handled, and that made it difficult for getting grants and things like that,” Weber told commissioners.
It also made commissioners pause efforts to assist the group, out of concern over using taxpayer dollars to help a private entity. When recycling was handled by Rotary, the county’s public works department transported recycled items such as plastic and glass to the Coffey County Recycling program, which is better prepared to handle such things. 
That’s when the group decided to create the non-profit organization.
They’ve secured a baling machine that can gather all types of recyclable material and bale it into a large square, making it easier to transport to a larger facility.
Typically, recycled material needs to fill a semi-trailer in order to be sold to vendors.
The Allen County program isn’t likely to collect large amounts of items, and doesn’t have enough storage room to keep it around until they can fill a semi. But they can take their material to Coffey County, which does sell to vendors.
The exception is cardboard. Allen County collects enough cardboard on its own to sell to vendors.
Everything else — plastic, glass, newspapers — needs to be taken to Coffey County.
That’s where they need the county’s help, Weber explained. They would like the county to transport those items, as it requires larger trucks and trailers than the group has available.
Recycling volunteer Steve Strickler said the county typically made the trip every two or three months for the Rotary program. With the new group’s larger baling machine, they would compress things like plastic into large bales that would hold more items and be easier to transport. He estimated they would need the county’s help about every six months, or twice a year.
“It would be a lot more efficient,” Strickler said.
