Recycling and Composting in Blair County

What is the IRC?

The Intermunicipal Relations Committee (IRC) is a council of governments (COG) consisting of the City of Altoona, Logan Township, and Hollidaysburg Borough.  The IRC was initially established as the Intermunicipal Recycling Committee in 1990 to address the needs of the member municipalities related to recycling and composting required by Pennsylvania Act 101 of 1988.  The name was changed in 1997 to reflect a desire by the member municipalities to undertake other intermunicipal issues.

Why does a COG make sense?

When entities work together the council governments (COGs) usually bring several efficiencies to local government efforts like recycling.

COGs can afford to hire specialized staff

Smaller local governments especially are unable to hire individual staff people for very specific programs. When several join together and pool their resources, the group can afford to hire staff qualified for that specific sort of work.

Program uniformity makes sense and is cost effective

A unified and consistent message makes sense in a program like recycling, where public education is important. All of the municipalities in the IRC collect the same recyclable materials, require the same kinds of business and public area recycling provisions, and collect yard waste in a similar fashion.

Cooperative ventures = Better grant funding opportunities

Multi-municipal programs are given priority over individual municipal funding requests in DEP’s recycling grant funding program.

Special programs are more cost effective when done cooperatively

Our composting operation, household hazardous waste collections, electronics recycling program and other special waste programs would often be cost prohibitive for individual municipalities to undertake. Especially with the closure of the county’s recycling office, these cooperative programs have survived because the IRC has been able to sponsor them and make them available to everyone.