By Jon King / jking@whmi.com


While curbside recycling has remained in place for many communities during the pandemic shutdown, a local recycling agency is hoping to open in the next few weeks.

Recycle Livingston in Howell closed down almost as soon as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued her “Stay Home, Stay Safe Order” in mid-March, and has remained so since then. But in an email to its members, the organization says it is exploring how best to reopen shortly after the current order expires May 15th while still practicing social distancing and all other CDC guidelines. In the meantime, it says while they anticipate there will be pent-up demand to drop off accumulated recycling, the reality is that they “cannot cope with more than 150 to 200 cars per site day under normal circumstances” and that once the compactors are full, they have nowhere to store and keep dry materials.

With that in mind, Recycle Livingston is working on how best to divide things up fairly so they can avoid having members show up on their site days only to find that they are full and cannot accept any more material. That means members will be limited to one load per day, with only two cars allowed to unload at any one time. They plan to adjust site days and times to accommodate everyone as much as possible, but remind the public that they mostly rely on volunteers who only have so much time and energy to unload and recycle materials. To help lessen the load once they do reopen, the organization says for the first two to three weeks, they will not be able to accept items such as paint, electronics and appliances. A complete list and other details are posted at their website; RecycleLivingston.org.