Portage County Recycling to open Reuse Center
- Adriana Gasiewski
Portage County Recycling anticipates opening a Reuse Center at its Center for Hard to Recycle Materials in April, with hopes of eliminating landfill waste and hazards.
After the CHaRM Center at 3588 Mogadore Rd. in Kent became available for residents in September of 2023, the center began to notice that some items it was receiving could be reused, said Dawn Collins, director of Portage County Recycling. The CHaRM Center opened its doors for once-a-month household hazardous waste collection in December of 2023.
“The Reuse Center is an extension of the CHaRM facility, but the CHaRM facility originally was for materials that are hard to recycle,” she said. “And once we established the program, and it’s in our third year now, we were getting a lot of items that we felt could be reused.”
These reusable items include paint (spray paint, latex paint and oil-based paint) and household hazardous waste (antifreeze, cleaners, aerosol products and wood stains or finishes). Other items include pool chemicals, motor oils, autonomic fluids, adhesives and sealants.
Although the new center is meant to direct reusable items away from the CHaRM facility, Portage County Recycling also anticipates it preventing these items from going into landfills.
“Cylinders, however, or batteries or items like that should not be going in your trash,” Collins said. “So, finally, Portage County has been able to create a way for diversion and give a program that was much needed.”
The new center will also be beneficial for residents, providing them with these opportunities to purchase items like spray paint at inexpensive prices.
“There’s a lot of materials that are usable, that are expensive and we are paying to landfill them, and the thought was, ‘Why not give it out to Portage County residents,’” Collins said.
When the center opens, it will not charge for donations, and it will have limited hours for residents to shop on Mondays or Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Currently, residents can bring household hazardous wastes to the CHaRM facility on the first Monday of the month from 2 to 5 p.m.
Adriana Gasiewski