Shuttering the last remnants of the county’s recycling operation and exploring the hiring of a recreation director were before the commissioners during a Monday work session.

County Commissioner Jeff Eggleston said he expects the county to “eminently” receive closer certification and closure funds from the Grunderville Landfill.

He said that recycling was “kind of the impetus for closing the landfill.

“(We are) at a point where the recycling program has to change,” he stressed. “(It) can’t stay in its current state.”

He told the board that the Solid Waste Authority’s dissolution means there’s no contact with Waste Management, the firm handling the recycling operations at the four townships still participating in the program — Eldred, Columbus, Elk and Cherry Grove.

“They’re charging whatever they want,” he continued, noting that the cysts are so great that the closure fund, several hundred thousand dollars, would be drained in a few years at this rate.

“The discussion that we’ve had initially is to shut that program down county-wide for a period of six months to a year,” he explained, and “relaunch it” once another way has been discovered to run the program.

Eggleston said his recommendation is to pursue a state Department of Environmental Protection grant to cover the costs of a planning process.

He cited a recycling plant that is being constructed in Erie as part of the reason why he believes that a “net zero… or as limited as possible” cost for the program.

Commissioner Tricia Durbin said he is “hoping we can find a public-private partnership” to shift the cust burden away from the county.

“I think everyone is pro-recycling,” County Planner Dan Glotz said. “The problem we are having” are rising costs and “folks using the recycling bin as a garbage drop off. It’s just been a bad situation. We’ve got to find a solution.”

Durbin said closing this program to “reset the landscape” will allow planners to “get more creative.”

Eggleston speculated that any future program would look significantly different than the current offering.

Glotz said the county has agreements with each of the municipalities that would need to be discontinued to close the program.

This is tied to the recreation issue because the proposal is to create a recreation and conservation authority.

“The most important piece is the idea of hiring a recreation director,” Eggleston said. “Someone (that is) going to be tied in with all the events (and) part of the marketing initiatives” and “do all these things we’ve been talking about doing.”

Commissioner Ben Kafferlin said he was “certainly fine with the creation of the authority” and “probably ok with the creation of the position.”

He said there have been “projects (we) had to turn down over the years because we did not have that position filled.”