Isabel Hansen calls herself "an avid recycler."
Hansen, 71, has lived in Moline's Homewood Manor apartment complex for 32 years. She takes time to sort paper from plastic, gather glass containers and break down cardboard boxes that arrive from deliveries.
Hansen and residents of the 235-unit complex had been taking their recycling to drop-off sites in Rock Island County. That stopped when the county's four sites were closed in September. Members of the Rock Island County Waste Management Agency (RICWMA) voted in June to close drop-off sites in Moline, Rock Island, East Moline and Milan and remove the bins, citing a drop in tipping fees to pay for the service.
"I was angry. I thought, how can you do this when everyone knows that we are going through all kinds of changes with our climate and with our planet," Hansen said. "Why would you take away something that people are using to try to help save the Earth?"
Although curbside recycling collection is available for most municipal residents, the service is not available to rural residents and to those living in multiple-resident properties such as apartment buildings or senior living complexes. The drop-off sites were the only option for those without curbside recycling.
Since the sites were closed, residents without the service must now take their recycling to the Scott Area Recycling Center in northwest Davenport. Hansen has joined with other Rock Island County residents in the fight to bring back the drop-off recycling bins.
"If the whole idea behind recycling is to help save our resources and save the planet, it seems pretty awful that we're expected to drive into another state to do our recycling; we're using up gas," she said.
Hansen said most of her neighbors are now just throwing items in the trash that could be recycled.
"I have a lot of older people who live around me, and it's too difficult for them," she said. "A lot of it has been going into the garbage. If there was some way I could get a recycling company to give me a bin in my apartment complex, I would use it. I have asked if we could get recycling here, but the (apartment) owners don't seem to care about that.
"I have a friend who lives in a condo and she does drive across the river (to recycle.) But I don't know how much longer she'll continue to do that."
Hansen said she relies on friends who allow her to drop off her recycling at their homes and put the items in their bins for curbside collection.
"I can only give them so much because they have their own recycling, too. I hate to impose on them all the time," she said.
RICWMA board membership is made up of residents from the county and 12 villages and cities within Rock Island County. The county is represented by Board Vice Chairman Brian Vyncke. Vyncke and Moline Alderman Michael Waldron were the only two members who voted to keep the drop-off sites open during RICWMA's June meeting.
Vyncke said Wednesday that he hopes to reopen the sites and bring back the recycling bins.
"There is definitely an interest by some of the board members to get the drop-off recycling program going again," he said. "But there are factors that go into that, like location and money. Silvis has since implemented their own drop-off site, but it's restricted to Silvis residents only."
Vyncke said RICWMA had not yet received all of its Solid Waste Grant (SWAG) money, which comes from tipping fees.
"When we get that tipping money, we'll have a better idea of where we're at," he said. "If the tipping fees go up and we have higher revenues then it will help us revisit funding the drop-off recycling program again. All of these cities have the opportunity to spend that money. I think when we get ready to put the budget together, we'll probably look at this. It would entail the cities giving up some of their SWAG grant money."
Vyncke said there likely will be a discussion about drop-off recycling at the March 15 RICWMA meeting. With the next fiscal year beginning July 1, the budget would have to include funding for recycling before it is to be adopted by the May or June meeting.
Vyncke said partnering with local townships might be a possibility.
"How often do we hear that the townships are overlooked for everything? What better way to get recycling in rural areas," he said. "There is hopefully going to be something that materializes out of this. It needs to be something longer-term and sustainable."
Phil Dennis, a longtime community volunteer and organizer, started a "Bring Back the Bins" movement in June when he learned of RICWMA's decision to end drop-off recycling.
"I was angered and shocked when they took away the bins, which people relied on in the county for recycling," Dennis said. "After speaking to the city council in Rock Island, I realized that we needed to organize and try to get them back since 35% of our population has no access to recycling."
Dennis and the "Bring Back the Bins" committee meets monthly before each RICWMA meeting. The dozen or so members are planning an Earth Day event to energize and involve the community before RICWMA votes on its budget.
"We need to focus public attention on the need for recycling," he said. "Volunteers last fall collected over 25,000 pieces of litter in the Quad-Cities because they were setting plastic pollution into the Mississippi River."
Dennis said his wife, Dorothy Beck, read through 12 months of minutes from RICWMA meetings in 2020 and 2021 and calculated that 800 tons of recycling was collected from the drop-off sites during a full year before the bins were removed.
"We're trying to move this forward with some sort of solution in the next couple of months; we only have a small window of time," Dennis said. "By May, it will be too late to get the bins back because their budgetary year begins July 1."