Recycling funds usage questioned

My letter is in response to the recent article “Alberton Council Experiences Conflict Over Cardboard.”

The big question at the Oct. 2, 2018, Alberton Town Council meeting was the distinction of how the excess of funds collected by the recycling project were to be used.

The council believed the funds should pay for bin pulls only, any excess reserved for future pulls and building up to satisfy future pull rate increases. Pulls averaged once monthly, with two months in the past year having two pulls, and were charged the rate of $300 per pull.

The recycling group was pursuing a sustainable business model suggested to them in September of 2017 by the DEQ’s Recycling and Market Development Specialist Dusti Johnson, who advised and encouraged starting a project in Alberton, which was possible for the same amount of monies currently invested in the bin project. The location was to be behind the cafe across the street from the Alberton school.

At the Oct 9, 2018, Alberton School Board meeting, with considerable pressure from the mayor, the superintendent recommended to the school board to support the bin only. Voting unanimously to not continue as a stakeholder, the future recycling center project ends. A project, that had plans to ultimately offer a job to someone in the area, will reimburse excess stakeholders; monies as a result of greater opinion to support a bin Republic has warned will add varied increases ranging from $75 per ton to a flat $300 processing fee on top of the $300 rate.

— Loreen Felstet, aka Loreen Green, Alberton