Jun. 2—The Meadville community is once more finding itself without an easy way to recycle as HydroBlox Technologies Inc. has canceled its monthly recyclable collections due to an influx of people dropping off regular household garbage.

The cancellation was announced in a post on the company's Facebook page on Wednesday.

"The sad truth is, the last three events descended into us receiving an alarming amount of garbage," the post reads. "We are simply not set up to handle that amount of trash."

Ed Grieser, CEO of the company, said the growing amount of garbage being dropped off during the collections started to become noticeable three months ago. He said over the past three collections, the amount of trash got progressively worse.

"In all these years, we never filled up our dumpster," Grieser said, speaking of the dumpster at HydroBlox's Meadville facility. "We filled up our dumpster with garbage."

In one instance, Grieser said HydroBlox had to take some of the garbage it had received to a dumpster at another of its facilities, because the Meadville one was already full.

HydroBlox began its collections last September. They began as just a plastic collection, as the company can use plastic to make the drainage boards that serve as its main products.

However, as the events grew in popularity, HydroBlox began partnering with other companies to collect other forms of recyclables, such as paper or cardboard.

Grieser said the events were a hit, often filling around 50 large boxes with recyclables, roughly a tractor-trailer load, with each collection. He said there were several regular participants who were grateful for the opportunity to recycle.

"We do feel terrible how upset they're going to be," he said.

As popularity grew, Grieser said the amount of trash getting dropped off also did. He said people would drive up to the collection, hand a bag filled with trash and then drive off.

The issue of people dropping off garbage instead of recyclables previously led Crawford County to cancel its voluntary countywide recycling program in 2017.

Grieser said HydroBlox will maintain its glass recycling container for now. The container, the size of a dumpster, is located in a parking lot across from the company's Meadville facility at 200 Mercer St.

However, that container will only stay "until that turns into garbage as well," Grieser said.

As to whether the collections have a chance coming back, Grieser was open to suggestions, but cast a dim view on the prospect.

"It doesn't look good," he said. "I am sorry. We liked it, the majority of the people were very nice and they were very, very appreciative, but at the end of the day, we can't create a problem."