The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality is awarding $25 million in grants to local governments to improve their recycling infrastructure after Hurricane Helene.
The funding, known as the Helene Recovery Recycling Infrastructure (HRRI) grant program, will support 16 projects across western North Carolina.
Reid Wilson, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, made the announcement Tuesday morning during a visit to a recycling center in Old Fort.
Wilson said the center’s intake of debris and other materials increased by 20% after Helene. It still remains above pre-storm levels.
“And that’s why this announcement is important, because the current equipment and infrastructure here isn’t capable of efficiently and cost-effectively handling this surge in debris,” Wilson said. “More debris means strain on machinery, higher maintenance costs, more hauling trips, and that has associated costs as well.”
The Old Fort facility will receive $580,000 to address those needs.
Among the 16 recipients, the largest awards will go to Buncombe County, which will receive $3.5 million, followed by Ashe County with $3 million and Alleghany County at $2.8 million.
Local governments plan to spend the money on things like repairing and upgrading equipment to make their recycling infrastructure more resilient.
Wilson said the upgrades mean an estimated 24,000 tons of recoverable material will be saved from landfills, benefiting 340,000 households and 22,000 businesses across the region.
He added that there is still an unmet need of nearly $100 million, as the state received far more requests than it was able to fund.
The grant funding is part of the American Relief Act that was approved by Congress in late 2024.
McDowell County Manager Ashley Wooten and Kevin McOmber, administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Southeast region, also attended the event.
Wooten said the county saw a “tremendous impact” on its solid waste system after Helene, with a large volume of storm debris as well as recyclables and other types of waste. The grant will help the county to transition to new types of waste containers that will improve efficiency, he said.
“And so, we will definitely save fuel, which is great for budgets – this time of the year and all the year — but also for the environmental impact,” he said. “It will be a great reduction in the exhaust that is going up and down our highways.”
The full list of grant recipients is below:
- Alleghany County ($2,800,000) will expand recycling services, rebuild Helene-damaged infrastructure at its transfer station, and make operational improvements for long-term resilience.
- Ashe County ($3,000,000) will replace aged and damaged buildings, equipment, and infrastructure used to handle household recyclables, vegetative debris, appliances, and hazardous waste.
- Avery County ($544,000) will purchase a horizontal grinder and replace damaged asphalt and concrete at recycling centers.
- Town of Black Mountain ($525,000) will rebuild key elements of the Buncombe County town’s curbside sanitation infrastructure with the goal of collecting more recyclable material and creating long-term resiliency.
- Buncombe County ($3,500,000) will build construction and demolition waste diversion infrastructure and increase revenue generated from these materials.
- Graham County ($1,400,000) will make site improvements and equipment purchases to modernize its recycling program.
- Haywood County ($2,514,500) will replace curbside carts lost during Hurricane Helene and relocate a convenience center out of the flood plain.
- Jackson County ($3,000,000) will construct an additional transfer station in the Cashiers area, which is frequently cut off due to landslides during storms. This facility will improve access to recycling services throughout the county.
- Macon County ($2,750,000) will rebuild its damaged Recycling Processing Center and make other improvements through new equipment investments.
- Town of Marshall ($356,000) will replace damaged collection equipment and establish a curbside recycling program for the Madison County town.
- McDowell County ($580,000) will purchase equipment to increase capacity, reduce maintenance-related downtime, and significantly decrease the number of trips required for material transport.
- Mitchell County ($380,000) will restore and expand its recycling center.
- Rutherford County ($1,500,000) will enhance vegetative debris recycling and divert construction and demolition debris from landfill disposal.
- Watauga County ($280,000) will replace containers lost in Helene and purchase new equipment to improve metals and white goods collections.
- Wilkes County ($570,000) will replace recycling trucks and collection equipment damaged during Hurricane Helene.
- Yancey County ($1,300,000) will rebuild storm-damaged recycling infrastructure and improve efficiency by adding equipment for in-house hauling and processing.
