Recycling is no longer an option for residents in unincorporated Comal County unless they want to drive to the Recycling and Chipping Center on Highway 46 in New Braunfels or pay a private company to haul off their recyclables.
Two Comal County commissioners and County Judge Sherman Krause voted to end the decades-old program on Dec. 31 following a heated debate at an Aug. 22 public hearing on the 2025 budget.
The court’s decision followed hundreds of emails, phone calls, and speeches by constituents who opposed Krause’s unpopular decision to shutter the program and redeploy some of its employees to the county’s Road Department.
Describing herself as “the queen of Mason jars” and a dedicated recycler, Pct. 1 Commissioner Donna Eccleston, who represents the south side of Canyon Lake, nonetheless agreed with Krause’s proposal to close six outlying recycling centers in Canyon Lake, Bulverde, Spring Branch and Garden Ridge.
“There’s a lot of moving parts,” Eccleston said, citing the expense of garbage trucks and driving recyclables to a San Antonio facility. She urged residents to team up to find alternative solutions that fit their budgets and lifestyles.
Pct. 2 Commissioner Scott Haag sided with Eccleston and Krause, voting to end remote recycling because it’s not in the county’s job description.
Haag also agreed with Eccleston that recycling trucks are expensive, adding the county pays in excess of $100,000 per year to send recyclables to the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in San Antonio.
But Pct. 4 Commissioner Jen Crownover, who represents the north side of Canyon Lake, made one last stand for remote recycling, describing Krause’s plan as a short-sighted “travesty.”
She was joined by Pct. 3 Commissioner Kevin Webb, who said he didn’t understand why the county wanted to do away with a popular and successful program.
Crownover said eliminating remote recycling centers will result in more illegal dumping, garbage hoarding, more trash in county landfills, burning on private property, and increased litter on roadways and neighborhoods, especially in areas surrounding Canyon Lake.
“Getting rid of this opportunity will create apathy in stewardship of resources on an individual level,” she said.
“Sometimes actions taken on this court are ministerial,” Crownover continued. “This is not one of those. An overwhelming amount of folks are begging to continue this wonderfully successful and beloved program.”
She then unsuccessfully moved to amend Krause’s proposed 2025 budget by transferring around $200,000 from the contingency fund to the recycling program in order to reinstate three employee positions.
“They are the face of this county in so many ways to our citizens and I’m really proud of the work they do and I want to keep them there.”
In an email to MyCanyonLake.com following Commissioners Court, Crownover said she is proud of county employee Daevin Rupp, who asked commissioners not to eliminate remote recycling.
“We’re out there every day, in heat, rain and cold, we’re out there working,” Rupp said, standing before the court during the public comments session. “It doesn’t matter if it’s pouring…of course you know I might be one of the people that’s up for the cut, there’s eight of us out there.”
“We’re here to take the recycling and improve the world for the future…we’re just there for the people.”
In her email, Crownover said Eccleston’s comments about the county having never purchased recycling trucks in the past are “absolutely false.”
“The old brown trucks we used to have were donated from different entities when we were establishing the rural pickup program,” she said. “The green trucks — I think that’s our entire fleet at this point — are trucks the county has purchased over the past several years.”
Crownover produced records from Comal County Recycling and Chipping Center Manager James Tart showing the county purchased two recycling trucks in 2011 and three in 2015.
She also said the $100,000 Haag referenced is about the same as the $8,000 per month amount outlined in her comments to the court, “which is directly offset by the ‘tipping fees’ that people pay when they take stuff to the landfill.”
“The rebate is figured based on the volume of goods that we are keeping out of the landfill,” Crownover said. “Also, in the coming months, there is a MRF that is opening up in New Braunfels, so that will drive the cost down for the county because it will be closer.”
“It’s really disheartening how the vote went down the other day, but I’m not giving up on the program or on our team.”
