×

Tikkanen: County should follow cities in recycling effort

HOUGHTON – The recycling movement in Houghton County will be a positive development, Houghton County Board of Commissioners candidate Tom Tikkanen said.

The cities of Houghton and Hancock each recently instituted recycling pickups through Waste Management. Tikkanen, a Republican candidate for District 1, pointed to the growing number of communities in the country producing close to zero trash, contrasting it with the inefficiency of hauling trash to Ontonagon County.

“I can appreciate the city of Houghton saying, ‘We want everybody to join in, but look, we’ve got to get going on this,’ and so they’re pushing on it,” he said. “I know there were some kind of quiet corners that kept criticizing that because they wanted more time so they they could get it into more of an area-wide network. but I think that’s probably going to be a good thing in the long run because they’re going to learn some lessons, and the rest of our communities can learn something from their experiences.”

Tikkanen said residents should be proactive and try to develop recycling program – if not countywide, at least as a network in which communities can join. Tikkanen said shared services will be a large factor in Houghton County’s future.

“The beauty is, we have many of these small communities, and that’s such a great lifestyle for people, but at the same time, it can be kind of inefficient,” he said. “Shared services, our governor’s been a proponent of that, I think that there’s future opportunities, not only just for recycling of garbage, but other services as well.”

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today