Shelton said the sanitation department receives no tax dollars and its budgets are based on fees it collects. There is no recycling fee for Owensboro. Historically, the city would get paid by brokers to take cardboard away. Shelton said cardboard is now worthless so it is not economically feasible for the city to continue accepting cardboard and being charged for it be hauled away.

Southern Recycling officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Shelton said the city's recycling center is a convenience that allows residents to drop off recyclable materials at one location. But the city is accepting fewer items than it had in the past.

The announcement that the city's recycling center is no longer accepting cardboard comes just a few months after the decision was made to no longer accept plastic. Shelton said the recycling center, at 1401 W. Seventh St., will still take items such as newspapers, phonebooks, magazines, and aluminum cans and steel cans.

Shelton said there are other options available for those who want to recycle. Dahl and Groezinger, at 940 W. Ninth St., accepts iron and scrap metal, and Southern Recycling, at 2401 Grimes Ave., accepts non-ferrous metal, paper and plastic.

"This doesn't say that recycling is over. It's not," he said. "We were only a convenience drop off."

Courtesy : www.messenger-inquirer.com