What is the Resource Recovery Program?
Well, that my friends is a loaded question, one of my least favorite in fact. I constantly get asked in work and personal life, what do you do? Very valid, like we know what recycling is, but how is that a whole job? Well let me tell you, as we continue to grow our program, I could use several clones of myself to keep up with all the program entails.
The Beginning of Recycling and the Program
Recycling came to Michigan in 1971 with the first recycling center in Ann Arbor. Fast forward a bit, the practice spread across the state into Van Buren County. Van Buren County contracted Michigan State University Extension (MSUE) to do the work of recycling and solid waste planning in the mid to early 2000s. They led the charge for the latest Solid Waste Plan in 2009 and hosted education and collections events across the county.
Starting in 2011, MSUE started facing budget limitations and had to step down from running the county recycling program. In order to keep the program running, Van Buren Conservation District took on the challenge. At that time, the program was small with a couple hazardous waste collections and that’s about it. Slowly, the VBCD has grown Van Buren’s Resource Recovery Program into the successful and diverse program we have today.
Collection Events
Van Buren County residents and landowners are able to access services for recycling and safe disposal of items at our numerous one day events throughout the “good” weather months. We host our largest events as consistently as possible, which we call Recycle Roundups. At these events, residents can safely dispose of Hazardous Waste, things like lightbulbs, batteries, household cleaning products, and more. Additionally, we accept electronics for recycling. Our vendor is data security verified and recycles as much material as possible. Starting in fall of 2022, we began collecting EPS Foam as well. Lastly, we accept passenger and semi tires from residents.
These events are annually hosted in Paw Paw, South Haven, and Lawrence. We aim to get these services to our residents as best as we can. In order to run these events, we rely on our fantastic volunteers to help us with traffic control, loading and unloading items, and checking in our attendees.
In addition to Recycle Roundups, we also offer one day events for electronic recycling. This service has changed throughout the years as we have continued increasing access in various ways. In 2026, we will be hosting 4 one day events in various areas all over the county to make sure we can get to folks who may not have the ability to travel well. We love being out in the community meeting people where they are.
Collection Services
As mentioned above, we continue to try and increase services to you all. We have moved several of our programs to be offered year round. Currently, we offer electronics recycling in two locations. We have great partners like Lakeview Community Thrift Shop in Paw Paw and South Haven Senior Services who are host sites for folks to drop off old electronics.
A few years ago, we were thrilled to offer battery recycling throughout the county. Batteries continue to be a concern in both standard recycling and the trash waste stream. With help from a grant from Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, we have set up nine locations throughout Van Buren County to recycle batteries. We are grateful for our host partners at several libraries including VBDL Antwerp, Bangor, Covert, Lawrence, Webster (Decatur) Branches, Paw Paw Public Library, Hartford Public Library, and South Haven Senior Services.
Our most popular program we offer is the tire recycling program. In the past we were limited to one day events for tires, which made it difficult for folks to access the service. For the past two years we have expanded the program to offer year round access. Most of our transfer stations across VBC now offer tire recycling in addition to the commingled recycling and bulk trash services. Every year we continue to collect over fifteen thousand tires!
Educational Programming
We love to teach here at the VBCD! We work to engage with you as often as we can. Kalli works to get out into the community in classrooms, local groups like garden clubs, and parks. This summer we are working with our local recycling facility to get you the inside look at where our recycling ends up. Join us for one of our tours! Additionally, find us at a few local events and festivals throughout the summer. Keep an eye on our social media to find where we set up next!
Is your classroom or local group wanting to learn more about recycling? Reach out, we are always happy to set up a presentation to teach our community.
Regional Collaboration
As well as getting to have fun at collection events, educational programs, keeping up with year round services, we also participate in the more boring side of government, the actual legislation side. A few years ago, Michigan passed a new amendment to the laws about solid waste, or simply what we do about trash. In the new law, governments are expanding their focus to include waste diversion rather than just making sure we have enough landfills. As our county recycling program manager, the VBCD has helped guide our county to work with our region on creating this plan to waste less in the future. We are partnering with Cass and Berrien County to write our new guidebook which is called a Materials Management plan. We are lucky to have Kalli chair the Materials Management Planning Committee to make sure VBC needs are heard and put into the plan for our future.
In addition to planning, we continue a regional approach to recycling in Southwest Michigan by holding the scrap tire grant for seven counties. This grant funded by Michigan Environment, Great Lakes and Energy is released annually to help communities collect the scrap tires and send them to a recycling facility. As mentioned above Van Buren County collects around 15,000 tires each year. The grant to pay for those tires is a regional effort and managed by the VBCD to make sure our region gets the same opportunity to recycle tires. Across the seven counties, we collected nearly 45,000 tires in 2025!
Grants are a great opportunity we like to use to make sure we are getting you the best services available. In 2023 the Van Buren Conservation District also applied and held a grant for our recycling centers, also called transfer stations, to make improvements to increase access to recycling. We continue to do this work for our smaller townships and villages to get them access to the funding they may otherwise not receive. This year, we have submitted an application to include communities in Cass County as well to help our entire region meet the recycling goals. By working together, we can achieve more!
Conclusion
Remember when I said, I dread the question, what is the Resource Recovery Program/ what is your job? Well, as you can see, it is a very loaded question and I could continue blabbering on about what it is we do forever. The only part I dread about it is the lack of a simple answer, it feels the question needs a trigger warning “unless you want to hear my monologue, do not ask” haha! I love my job and the community I serve. There are a lot of components I get to work on and the variety is what keeps me motivated. I am driven to do more for our community every time I step out to it and meet new people. I feed on challenges and they only push me to be a better problem solver. Ask me all your hard questions because I love it! If I could change anything about my job as the Van Buren County Materials Management Project Manager, it would be to give me more time and energy so I can continue helping our community!
