Hillsboro resident Matthew Tate empties a recycling bin full of plastic bottles into his homemade recycling basket at the West Virginia State Fair Monday. Above right, Tate collects bottles and cans. Tate, a volunteer, works each day from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. or later, emptying recycling bins and sorting through trash, dumping recyclable items in his homemade basket and pedaling off to the next stop.
FAIRLEA, W.Va. — Many people take a day or two off work to enjoy the West Virginia State Fair.
Matthew Tate takes two weeks. To work the fair. For free.
Tate takes care of recycling.
“The fair had tried recycling before, but it didn’t work, so I asked if I could try it and they said, ‘Sure,’” he recalled of how he got his start. “So I got some cardboard recycling bins and then I got 100 bins donated from the Department of Environmental Protection and I go around and sort the recyclables every day.”
Tate — who camped at the fairgrounds for the first six years, but is driving back and forth from Hillsboro each day this year — hops on his bike each day at 9 a.m., to begin the collection process.
Although the bins should make it easy for people to separate recyclable items from trash, he said it doesn’t always happen.
“It’s very, very rare that I’ll find a full-one,” he said of the recycling bins. “So most of my day, I’ll go to a recycling bin, see that it’s half-empty and I’ll dig through the trash bin…