By Malcolm Butler
A fire at the Rivers Recycling Facility in Kilgore, Texas, on June 12 will directly impact City of Ruston recycling customers — at least indirectly — for the immediate future, according to John Freeman.
Freeman, the City of Ruston Construction Projects Supervisor, said the fire which started after hours almost two weeks ago and completely destroyed the facility, will force the city to try to find an alternate single source recycling partner.
“Rivers Recycling Facility is the materials recovery facility we use,” said Freeman.
The city of Ruston uses a single stream recycling platform where the citizens are not required to sort their recyclables (i.e. plastic, paper, cardboard, etc.). Ruston residents who recycle simply put all of their recycle materials in the blue can and the city of Ruston picks them up.
“From that point it goes out to our landfill to a specific transfer station,” said Freeman. “That trailer is then hauled twice a month to Kilgore.”
Freeman said the city has a contract with Murphy Brothers to haul the trailer to Kilgore.
While the owners of the Kilgore facility said they will rebuild, it will take a while thus leaving Freeman and city officials scrambling to locate another single stream facility within a reasonable geographical footprint that the city can partner with in the short-term.
“The fire happened on June 12 but we didn’t find out about it until Wednesday (June 19),” said Freeman. “We spent a good amount of time (late last week) thinking through the process and trying to find another location. There just aren’t a lot of those around are area and we simply haven’t found one yet.
“They do plan to rebuild but we certainly don’t have a timeframe on that yet.”
Until an alternative location is located, Freeman said that all the recyclables will be treated as normal garbage.
“What that means today is there is not a location for our recyclables to go to be recovered,” said Freeman. “We are going to continue to pick up. We ask the folks who are our customers to remain our customers and continue to use it. We will continue to pick it up.
“But for the time being it will have to go to the landfill with the rest of our household garbage.”
Ruston began its recycling program after Mayor Ronny Walker was elected for his first term back in 2015. The city originally utilized Pratt Industries in Shreveport for its recyclables but were forced to switch to the Kilgore location a few years ago.
“This switch was before my time,” said Freeman. “But Pratt was either overwhelmed or didn’t have a market for a lot of the products. So they said they would no longer accept our single stream recycling, but said here is a location (in Kilgore).”
Freeman said the City has approximately 800 recycling customers, including 650 within the city limits (150 outside the city limits). He said until a new single stream facility is located, the city would not be accepting any new customers.
The city of Ruston’s recycling program totals between 12 and 13 tons per month or roughly 150 tons per year, according to Freeman.
