Putnam Solid Waste Director Retires, Successor Named

Keith Street will be retiring as Solid Waste Director this month, after 23 years of work in Putnam County.

Street said the county’s population growth has been the biggest change since he started, with the amount of trash and recycling nearly doubling over two decades. Street said it will be sad to leave his team, but said it will not be the last time they see him hanging around the transfer station.

“I live here and I’m not too far from the office actually, and I’m sure I’ll stay in contact with several of the people,” Street said. “I’ll generate enough trash and recycling myself, I’ll have to stop by and see them occasionally.”

Street said the next Solid Waste Director will be his Assistant Director Doug Ashburn, who’s been working along side Street for all 23 of those years. Street said during that time they’ve seen the amount of daily trash climb by over 100 tons.

“Our transfer station here was designed in probably 1995, to handle 100 tons a day,” Street said. “On a normal day now, we’re bringing in 210 to 240 tons, holidays are much more than that… well over 300 tons during the holidays.”

Street said with all the population growth and more solid waste to deal with, he’s seen a more efforts in community education. Street said this is about showing the importance of protecting the environment.

“With industry growing and more people moving in, we try to educate every year,” Street said. “We have a lady, Lisa Luck, who works for us part-time and does all the education for the county to make sure all the kids in the schools understand how we need to recycle and how we need to save the landfills.”

Street said the first location he worked was located off of 15th Street. Street said his final day as Solid Waste Director will be November 25.