Putnam County Gearing Up For Household Hazardous Waste Facility

Architects have completed drawings for the Putnam County household hazardous waste facility.

County Mayor Randy Porter said bids for construction will go out in January.

“I think it’s going to be a great addition to our solid waste program in Putnam County,” Porter said. “We have a good program already with convenience sites scattered all over the county. This would be another extra piece of that puzzle that we put into place.”

The facility will be built at the City of Cookeville’s brush site on West Jackson Street. Construction will be funded with a $480,000  non-matching state grant that the county received earlier this year.

The new facility will give people more opportunities to dispose of unwanted household hazardous waste materials. In the past, Porter said Putnam County held household hazardous waste events at the fairgrounds once a year.

“It’s not something that we can take and put in our regular landfills and we’ve been getting flooded during that one day,” Porter said. “With this grant, we are able to build this new facility for folks to drop off the waste on a daily basis and not let it build up somewhere.”

Porter said the city of Cookeville will be a partner in the project.

“We are looking at putting not only a household hazardous waste facility there but also a convenience center,” Porter said.

Porter said construction on the household hazardous waste facility is expected to be completed in June.