The Washington County Recycling Center has seen an uptick in tonnes this spring while the landfill is closed to individuals due to COVID-19 preventative measures. At Tuesday’s Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting, Lynn Whaley with WEMIGA Waste, who oversees the county’s recycling center, said April was a three-year high.

And he shared why he thinks the facility is seeing more traffic, “Everybody’s, you know, been cleaning up at home, bringing stuff in. And there’s also to note that SEMCO has been closed to the public. So a lot of folks that, you know, would take stuff to the landfill, they can’t go there. So, that’s been a little bit of a hindrance. I will say that it’s probably a lot of the increase is that it’s not open to the public.” Whaley shared that the landfill tonnage was up 14.74 tons and recycling was up 11.18 tons last month.

SEMCO has been closed to the public since March 18th and is only open to commercial waste haulers.