On March 20, Randolph County Recycling Coordinator Michelle Huether visited the Journalism class at CHS to answer students questions about recycling. During the interview, the Journalism students were quite engaging with Mrs. Huether.
One of the questions asked was what her long-term outlook was for her job. To this, she responded, “I want to have a basis of operation where you could drop off old furniture and other things that are harder to recycle. It would also be helpful to have monthly meetings for anyone who is interested in the industry of recycling.”
Another big question asked was what the effect of COVID-19 had on recycling as a whole. To this, Mrs. Huether responded that “The process was slowed down at first, but what I really noticed was the plastic increase that we received during the quarantine that occurred.” The increase in recycling of plastics is not surprising mainly because during COVID, people did everything at home. We weren’t going places. Everyone was at home. A majority of the plastic was probably water bottles.”
At the interview, Huether also talked about the amount of recycling that her department deals with every year. While it is not the most in the world, a substantial amount of recycling is done in Randolph County. When asked about what the best part of her job was, she responded, “Just knowing its (‘its” referring to recycling) going to be taken care of properly. Knowing its gonna be turned into something useful.”
One of the things Mrs. Huether says could be better was financing. She said that “I could do more with more finances. Trying to make it bigger and better is what I would love to do.” This doesn’t come as a surprise, mainly because we live in a small community. We’re obviously not going to have the best finances, but if the local government helps the recycling department, they can improve as a whole and take on bigger challenges. Mrs. Huether says that her long-term outlook for recycling in our county is that she “would love to have a base of operations in the middle of our county.” Hopefully with time, the recycling department can get some momentum going and improve as a whole.