The clothing donation site in North Webster recently appeared to be overwhelmed with inappropriate items and damaged. Photo from the Kosciusko County Recycling Depot’s Facebook page.

By Liz Shepherd
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — The Kosciusko County Solid Waste Management District is looking into concerns at its clothing donation sites.

During a meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 17, Kosciusko County Recycling Depot Director Tom Ganser said he has someone completing site audits specifically for the clothing collection areas.

There’s been issues with people damaging the boxes and donating items that are not clothing or shoes. He said a clothing donation vendor has visited the sites three times a week; however, the sites typically get contaminated or destroyed on weekends.

The term contamination refers to items not intended for the collection site.

“Whitley Environmental’s getting upset because they’re the ones cleaning it up,” said Ganser. “That’s contributing to our contamination, but we don’t have the personnel ourselves to send people every day to clean out everything.”

Ganser said they’ll re-evaluate the clothing donation sites after the district’s audit. The depot is looking into installing metal containers versus wood ones for clothing donations.

The board also discussed quotes for mowing at the Warsaw recycling depot. Ganser said the cheapest quote was from Creative Design for $80 every other week at the Warsaw facility. He noted that none of the companies he heard back from have made it to the North Webster and Syracuse sites to create mowing quotes for those areas.

“The whole conversation is whether we want to get a tractor and trailer and do it ourselves or not,” said Ganser. “If we have someone else do it, we don’t have to worry about storing a tractor and trailer. Our main issue is getting someone out of here (the depot) for three or four hours to get to Syracuse or North Webster to clean.”

The board’s next meeting is at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 14.