Johnsonburg Borough now has two of its very own drop-off containers for recycling.

Bekki Titchner, Elk County’s Recycling/Solid Waste coordinator, said Johnsonburg has been working on bringing these containers to the borough for quite some time. The site became active within the past couple of months, with the first pickup happening in May. The items are transported to the Elk County Recycling Center in St. Marys.

The borough received a $41,557 Recycling Development & Implementation grant for this project in 2022.

There are two containers, one for paper/cardboard and one for plastics, both painted Johnsonburg’s school colors –blue and yellow, located in the parking lot of the municipal building.

In addition to the center, there are now drop-off locations in Johnsonburg and Ridgway boroughs, and Fox, Horton, Jones and Jay townships.

Now, Titchner said, people from Johnsonburg don’t have to drive to St. Marys with these items, but can use their own location in the borough.

This also benefits the recycling center itself.

“For us, it’s additional material,” she said. “We’re always searching for more materials to bring into the center.”

Educating the public on recycling is always a learning curve, especially with new containers such as these.

“People understand paper much more than plastic,” she said.

Notably, Titchner said, some people put their plastic items in bags before they put them in the drop-off container.

“This takes up a lot of space,” she noted. “The container needs to be delivered here more often than it should.”

When this happens, recycling center staff and volunteers spend more time taking everything out of the bags, etc.

Titchner recommends that people just dump the plastic loosely into the container itself.

Courtesy : thecourierexpress.com