A truck piston, mixed in with yard waste, destroyed an expensive, industrial chipper at the Kokomo Yard Waste Center this year, and the center’s manager, Tracy Johnston, keeps the old hunk of metal around as a memento.

It’s a reminder of the old days at the center, when tree service guys would roll up at all hours for dropoffs.

“They used it for a dump,” tree service owner John Baber said indignantly. “I came up there one time and they were unloading wire fencing. I said, ‘You can’t put that stuff here,’ but they didn’t care.”

Things are a lot more regulated now at the center, which for years has been providing mulch and compost cost-free to Howard County residents and landscaping firms.

Originally created as a sort of “honor system” drop area for tree limbs and yard waste, Kokomo city officials thought the center would save them some of the hassle of picking up limbs and other green waste around the city.

The reason Johnston inspects each load these days is because the honor system never quite worked out as hoped.

Asked if the fence was installed to keep truckloads of tree limbs from being dumped, Johnston explained he isn’t so concerned about green waste.

“I was afraid somebody was going to dump me 100 tires,” he said.

Open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, the place formerly known as the “reclaim center,” 1130 S. Dixon Road, is now under new management.

The city of Kokomo still owns the property, but the center is now run by the Howard County Recycling District. The district, in turn, is funded by property taxes paid by all Howard County residents.

In an effort to make the center less of a subsidized enterprise, Recycling District officials began charging tree service and lawn care businesses dumping fees.

There are new rules: no dirt, no construction or demolition materials, no trash and no sod, “but generally any other type of yard waste we can take,” recycling district director Mikki Jeffers said.

The recycling district periodically hires a Noblesville contractor, Greencycle Inc., to come in and chip up tree limbs.

This spring, Greencycle disposed of more than 65,000 cubic yards of old tree limbs, including some materials that had been sitting for close to a decade. That’s when the unfortunate incident with the truck piston occurred.

That incident aside, the yard waste center has been making steady progress toward several goals.

The first, ending all illegal dumping at the site, has been taken care of by stricter enforcement of the rules and 1,300 feet of fencing.

Second, the city still drops off green waste collected by the street department, comes back when the material has been shredded, and then either uses the raw mulch, or takes the wood chips to make compost.

City street foreman Ken Brock said the city has a sizable stock of leaves and grass clippings out behind the Kokomo Wastewater Treatment Plant. For years, he’s been composting those materials, mainly for use by the city. When the compost pile is ready, he shakes it through a screen.

“It’s an excellent compost, and when we do have extra, we take it out to the yard waste center,” Brock said. “It usually lasts about a day.”

It’s simple green compost; no animal manure or human biosolids are mixed in with it. Brock uses it on his own flower gardens. The city uses it to make topsoil. It’s nature at work.

Some of that nature can be seen behind the Penny Saver store at Jefferson Street and Apperson Way.

Street crews tore up what was formerly known as Kennedy Street and laid down composted soil and grass seed to make green space for the neighborhood. It’s one of many green projects the city can afford to take on, thanks to the yard waste center.

Not everyone is happy with the center; Jeffers admits she’s gotten fewer takers on the $500 season dumping pass than she would have liked.

Howard County residents have free use of the facility; the fee only applies to businesses.

“I’ve got a little deal where I can go dump somewhere else and it doesn’t cost anything,” Tru-Cut Tree Service owner Tim Lucas said. “There aren’t too many businesses left around, and what the government needs to realize is that we can’t carry [the tax] burden for everybody.”

Lucas said the recycling district would make more money by charging residents fees for mulch and compost, saying the district could undercut local retailers.

Rice Tree Service, West Middleton, has created its own massive piles of wood chips, by investing in a chipper. And Baber, whose Baber’s Tree Service operates out of Michigantown, said he’s content to pay $20, the fee for each load dumped by an out-of-county business.

“The problem is when you make something free, not free,” Baber said. “If it had started off at $20, there wouldn’t be any grumbling.”

Now that the yard waste center no longer has massive, old piles of tree limbs mixed with trash, local officials are hoping to keep it that way.

“It’s a little bit of green, a little bit of brown,” Johnston said, surveying his neat piles. Other than his memento, there’s no a scrap of metal to be seen.

• Scott Smith is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He may be reached at (765) 454-8569 or via e-mail at scott.smith@kokomotribune.com