Recycling Plant Making Changes Amid Complaints

EL PASO, Texas — The war has lasted two years. On one side, Northeast neighbors sick of blowing trash. On the other side the Friedman Recycling Plant near Railroad Drive.

Now, the plant’s owner says he’s about to make some changes that he hopes will lead to a truce.

“We wanna be a good neighbor, said David Friedman. “We wanna be a good corporate citizen.”

That’s why Friedman says his plant is trying to make good.

“You see trash along the road,” Northeast resident Mary Ann Snyder told ABC-7. “You see it hanging out in the bushes.”

Snyder took her side of things before El Paso City Council Tuesday afternoon.

Then, it was Mr. Friedman’s turn.

The plant owner told the city representatives if it seems like there’s an excess of recyclables, that’s because there is. And Friedman says you can blame the economy.

The demand for the sale of recyclable materials is down, he says, way down. So they’ve been piling up at the plant.

But El Paso Environmental Services Director Ellen Smyth says that’s already starting to change.

“This is a temporary problem,” Smyth told ABC-7. “In the next six months, it’ll be out of sight, out of mind and everyone will be happy again.”

In the meantime, the plant plans to add an additional 14,000 square feet of netting to keep the trash from flying around.

The plant will also construct a taller, more solid wall some time within the next 60 to 120 days.

Snyder says if the neighbors and the plant are going to get along, they’re going to need that solid solution.

“We’re retired military,” said Snyder. “We take a great deal of pride in our neighborhood. I will die in El Paso, Texas. I’m not going anywhere.”