By Blake Haas

BLOOMINGTON – From Mattresses to electronics, Midwest Fiber Recycling is seeing an increase in illegal dumping.

According to Todd Shumaker, Director of Sales and Material Procurement at Midwest Fiber, clothes, mattresses, furniture, and electronics have been dumped illegally during the past two weeks.

“You know, from time to time over the years of this program, it does happen occasionally, but we’ve had a few incidents of it the last few weeks that have us a little concerned. I think we’re really lucky and fortunate in McLean County or Bloomington-Normal that we do have the Ecology Action Center to help direct people to recycle these items. Because in some cases, there is some reuse options available for them, and it does seem like there’s a pretty robust reuse community in the Bloomington-Normal area.”

Shumaker said the organization has worked with location drop boxes and is now video monitored, and anyone caught dumping material would be reported.

“The first thing obviously is to kind of get the message out there to make sure that people know that those items don’t belong there.”

Midwest Fiber is Central Illinois’ largest full-service recycler with Bloomington-Normal, Decatur, Springfield, and Peoria facilities.

Each year, the company processes over 125,000 tons of recyclable material.

Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].