The Berrien County Parks Department is gearing up for this year’s community recycling events, the first of which will be in April.
Berrien County Parks Director Jill Adams tells us the county offers the events mostly free of charge to all residents several times a year. It’s a way to keep environmentally damaging materials out of landfills.
“The recycling events offered by Berrien County Parks accept things that are kind of hard to recycle, not accepted in your curbside bin,” Adams said. “So things like chemicals from your household, electronics, we have paper document shredding.”
Adams says they’ll also take paints. Most items are free to recycle, with the exceptions being TVs, monitors, and items containing freon. It’s $20 for TVs and $10 for monitors and freon.
So, how are these events funded?
“Nothing to the taxpayers. The revenue source comes from landfill tipping fees.”
Adams says the landfills would rather keep certain items out, and so they support the recycling events.
The next recycling event will be Tuesday, April 14 from 2 to 6 p.m. at Lake Michigan College in Benton Harbor. They’ll accept household chemicals, electronics, foam, documents, and bicycles.’