An Iowa County Recycling Center Promotes Repurposing Goods with Swap Shop

A Recycling center in Oakland, Iowa is using its Swap Shop to encourage recycling and reusing of items brought to the facility.

The Pottawattamie County Rural Recycling Center accepts community donations at the Swap Shop and allows residents to take what they need from the shop, free of charge. Some items the shop receives are just too good to go to waste.

"There was a lot of people that were coming in with just — I mean, too good to go into the compactor," said Matt Wyant, Pottawattamie County Director of Planning and Development.

"We want to be able to keep the landfills that we have in operation for as long as we can. In order to do that we really have to focus on what can we revert from the landfill and that is, that's what recycling is all about.”

Five years ago, the Pottawattamie County Public Health Department moved the center to a new location with plans of having a thrift-store-like area in the space. The Swap Shop now houses furniture, seasonal fines, and other goods waiting for someone to take them home.

"We also have some books in here, some good used kids items, and things like that, so there's a pretty wide variety of different materials that will come in and out of the Swap Shop," said Wyant.

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