Give-And-Take Set to Return to Wayland Transfer Station

The small grassy island surrounded by labeled recycling dumpsters and places for orange bags of trash and donation bins for various nonprofits has been strangely vacant for the past couple of months.

That island at the is the home of the popular give-and-take pile during warm months, but in the winter, it's home to snow piles cleared from the transfer station roads.

Except this year. This year, it's just been vacant.

Transfer Station Senior Foreman Donnie Gladu said he shut down the give-and-take center for the winter with the expectation that snow piles would soon fill that space, but this mild winter has instead left a vacant island and a lot of people wondering about that give-and-take pile.

Gladu said people have been persistent in asking him to reopen that portion of the transfer station, and he's tired of putting it off. "I never thought I'd cave under pressure," he said. But cave he will and, weather permitting, Gladu plans to reopen the give-and-take pile on March 1.

When that happens, Gladu pointed out, he'll add a task to his already busy schedule as the only full-time employee at the transfer station. Whatever isn't taken from the give-and-take pile falls to Gladu to sort and dispose of.

He estimated that 80 percent of what is left in the give-and-take pile is junk that he will end up separating into metal and, mostly, bulky waste.

"If you wouldn't pick it up," Gladu advised, "throw it in bulky waste. If it won't fit in an orange bag, throw it in bulky waste."

Gladu recommended that truly nice items go in the various nonprofit donation bins at the transfer station rather than the give-and-take pile. As of last year, Habitat for Humanity has a trailer at the transfer station, making it easy for people to donate good-condition construction materials that will be resold at a Habitat for Humanity store and will help fund projects in Wayland and elsewhere.

Lumber, plumbing fixtures, windows, flooring, hardware, siding and various other items can be left in the Habitat for Humanity trailer.

Once the weather warms, the will restart at the transfer station, which will put some of that give-and-take material to good use, Gladu said.

In the meantime, he asked only that people be thoughtful of what they "give" and generous with what they "take."

"The more you take, the less gets thrown in the trash."