Schools plan to stay green despite end to free recycling pickup

Recyclables won’t be going to waste in many Richland County schools this year after Sonoco Recycling ended its free school pickup service in the county this spring.

The Richland 2 school district is working with the county’s solid waste department to continue recycling collection at its 42 district campuses.

And the county and Columbia both have offered to help Richland 1 schools continue their recycling.

Sonoco made the decision to stop collecting recyclables for free from Richland County schools in March because it became too expensive, said Jane Hiller, Sonoco’s education liaison in Richland County. Lexington County schools already paid a fee to have their recycling hauled by Sonoco.

For years, the international recycling company, based in Hartsville, had been using older hauling trucks to collect from the schools “at a loss” to the company but as a service to the community, Hiller said. But when those trucks wore out, Sonoco couldn’t afford to reinvest in a service that already was losing money, she said.

“The schools understood,” Hiller said.

To fill the void, Richland 2 has purchased recycling roll carts from the county, and they will be picked up by the county’s contracted haulers as part of their regular routes. The district will reimburse the county for the cost of collecting its recycling, which the county has estimated at $1,150 monthly.

“We were already recycling, and we know it’s the right thing to do, and we were committed to making it happen,” Richland 2 spokeswoman Libby Roof said. “We weren’t going to take a step back. (Recycling is) an important lesson for students.”

Both the city and the county said they had reached out with offers to Richland 1, but the district has not yet made a decision about what to do about recycling, district spokeswoman Karen York said.

The Lexington-Richland 5 district is in a complicated position straddling two counties. Rather than working with multiple government jurisdictions to collect recycling, the district is seeking a private company that might become a recycling partner, spokesman Mark Bounds said.

“District Five remains committed to being good stewards of our environment and to a comprehensive recycling program,” Bounds said.

Some of the private schools Sonoco had collected from plan to work with private haulers to pick up their recycling, Hiller said.