Last week the Bell County Solid Waste and Recycling Center hosted the 2020 Kentucky Waste Tire Management Program. As you may have heard, the event collected more than 22,000 tires.

What does that mean?

Well, it means those tires will not end up in a landfill. It means they will not be tossed to the side of the road in a dump.

It also means Bell County is a lot cleaner than it was a little more than a week ago, and of that, we should all be proud.

The recycling center operates on a skeleton crew, with very few workers to do a great deal of work to keep the county clean. We should all do our best to keep trash out of the roadside dumps and be sure to not litter the beautiful countryside that covers Bell County. And we have options.

The trash collection service offered through the local solid waste program is $14.50 per month, and that allows a person to have their home trash collected, as well as many larger items that would normally end up out in the county’s roadside dumps. When that happens, it not only creates eyesores, but it also can lead to pollution of our water depending on the items that are dumped and where they are placed by the ones doing the dumping.

Right now, with so many tires collected and out of our county thanks to the work of the recycling center staff, and also to the many locals who took the time to do the right thing with their scrap tires, Bell County is cleaner than it’s been in quite a while. Please, let’s all do our best to keep it that way!