The Collegian

Issue date: 4/17/08 Section: Focus

Under a corrugated metal shelter, a pit yawns in the thick cement floor to reveal a driveway below.

There parks a Mack cab - its hood garnished with a chrome bulldog - backed into the underground garage. Along the pit's front edge, a small wall of rubbish warns visitors of the cavernous opening.

Every night before leaving his post as keeper of the bins at the Republic Waste Services Transfer Station on 425 W. Carleton Rd., Jeff Smead, 52, climbs to the cab of his yellow Kawasaki loader and pushes the trash into the pit's waiting trailer. When he isn't tending the garbage pile, he sorts through the recycling bins.

Republic Waste Services owns exclusive rights to Hillsdale's residential garbage hauling and also collects much of the city's recycling.



"There's always gonna be garbage," Smead says, toeing a piece of plastic fallen from the heap. "You're gonna die and you've got to pay taxes. You're always going to have garbage, too."

It's that assurance that attracted Smead to the garbage and recycling business in 1980, when he started his own garbage-collecting company. Compared with the volatile job market of factory work, he says, trash collecting offered greater job security.

"It's a safe bet for not getting laid off," he says. "When the weather's nice, it's really fun. When the weather's crummy, you just get out and do it and you wait for the nice weather."

Smead sold his business several years ago and has worked at Republic's transfer station since 2001, where he oversees the station's operations. Waste collected in the 125-yard trailers gets hauled to a landfill in Fort Wayne, while recyclables go to recycling plants around Michigan and Indiana.

"I've got a TV in the car," calls out JoAnn West, 73, climbing from her vehicle. "Do you know where I can stop and environmentally dump it? People leave 'em along the road and I don't want to do that."

West delivers rubbish and recyclables every week to Republic, she says. She lives three miles from Reading, but no recycling service comes to her house, so she drives her bottles and cans to Hillsdale.

"I'm 73, I'll probably be gone, but my grandkids will be around," she says, explaining her recycling enthusiasm. "I want to take care of the environment."

Smead tells West to check her TV with Barb Hess in the office. West will pay $20 to dispose of it. She and other customers must pay fees - starting at $3 per bag - for garbage they bring to Republic, but recyclables may be dropped off for free.

Smead says the only problem with free recycling arises when people try to get rid of garbage for free by throwing it in recycling bins. He sorts through the recycling bins several times each day to clear non-recyclable rubbish.

With landfills beginning to fill up, Smead calls recycling "a must."

"You can't bury stuff forever," he says. "Recycling is the ticket. It's obviously cheaper to grind up something and reform it into something than to make it new." It also helps to protect natural resources, he adds.

Incentive to recycle is increasing, thanks to a growing market for recycled products, Smead says.

He adds environmental concern for natural resources is feeding further development of recycling methods.

"People do it because it's the right thing to do," he says. "Businesses do it because it can make them a buck."

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