East Texas still has options when it comes to recycling. In October, a new 50,000-square-foot facility, the Northeast Texas Regional MRF opened its doors in Kilgore.
KILGORE, Texas — Nearly a year after a fire destroyed the Rivers Recycling Center in Kilgore, officials have confirmed the facility will not be rebuilt, despite early promises to reopen.
A new recycling center is stepping in to fill the void, and local leaders are working to restore sustainable waste management services after months of disruption.
President Jeff Craine told our news partners, the Longview News-Journal, sharing his insights and addressing the situation in detail.
“It was a very tough decision and the cost of the project became too much,” he said.
Craine attributed the decision to close operations to the rising cost of equipment, driven in part by ongoing steel tariffs and the high price of modern technology.
He said, despite their best efforts, there simply wasn’t enough customer demand to justify continuing.
But East Texas still has options when it comes to recycling. In October, a new 50,000-square-foot facility, the Northeast Texas Regional MRF opened its doors in the heart of Kilgore.
“We built it to service the entire region,” general manager Todd Lucas said.
Lucas said they anticipate serving 13 to 14 counties in the region, including Longview and the city of Tyler.
“This facility is designed to handle the volume generated and future growth in this market,” Lucas said. “So citizens of East Texas need to know that there's a home for their material.”
Unlike the city of Tyler, which was forced to pause its curbside recycling program after the fire, Longview continued offering the service but sent the collected materials to a landfill instead of a processing center.
“Now we do have a place that we're able to take all of our recyclables to so they can be recycled, and then we can put it back into production,” city of Longview sanitation compost manager Kim Wallace said.
Wallace said city officials have been actively working to finalize a temporary agreement with the new recycling facility in Kilgore.
He said that starting Monday, June 2, all recyclables will be transported to the new facility in Kilgore.
“Our residents are very excited about it,” Wallace said. “I've talked to many of them over the past year, and some of them have been holding on to those recyclables just that long.”
City of Tyler solid waste director Leroy Sparrow said traffic to the Collection Center has increased since the city paused its curbside program.
“More people have been coming by and bringing their items to the downtown center,” Sparrow said.
Tyler is negotiating deals with Northeast Texas Regional and other vendors to resume curbside pickup by mid-July.
“The residents are ready to see that curbside start back up, so that they don't have to bring their items here, so they could go back to their normal routine,” Sparrow said.