Franklin Township supervisors officially turned down Carbon County's proposal to continue offering recycling at a cost to the township, instead, supervisors announced last night that they are looking into buying their own containers and maintaining a recycling program for township residents.

"We're going to continue on our own," said Rod Green, chairman. "We plan to buy about 20 containers, bigger bins than what are there now. Our goal is to keep the recycling program in house, by that I mean our employees will do the work involved."Green has been adamant that recycling continue."If we don't keep this going, people would have to be re-educated and we're afraid there will be trash all over like before," he added. "It will be set up similar to what we have been doing."Supervisors are looking at various options to continue to offer the service to residents.Supervisors had hoped to award bids for 10,000 gallons of low sulfur diesel fuel and 6,000 gallons of heating oil, but both bids were "confusing" to the board and they plan to contact both bidders, Lehigh Fuels, LLC of Whitehall; and Superior Plus of Exton, to clarify bids before making a decision.Supervisors will likely hold a special meeting to award those bids because the present bids expire on Feb. 23.There were no bids for 10,000 gallon 87 octane no lead gasoline at the pump. Supervisors made a motion to rebid the contract to be opened at the March 19 meeting.Seated for the first time at a supervisor's meeting was Byron Long, who was appointed at the reorganization meeting on Jan. 7. Long was appointed to fill the seat vacated by the resignation of Larry Smith, who recently passed away.Because there is a new supervisor, there were a few housekeeping details that supervisors took care of, such as removing Smith's name and adding Long's on all accounts at Jim Thorpe National Bank and on all PLGIT accounts.Supervisors also adopted a resolution that will provide a temporary easement agreement with Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to use the Lehigh Canal towpath when they rehabilitate the McCall bridge.Supervisors also reappointed Ronald Solt to a five-year term as Franklin Township representative to the Central Carbon Municipal Authority, retroactive to Jan. 7, 2013 and Kevin Strunk to a five-year term as Franklin Township's representative to the Joint Uniform Construction Code Appeals Board.Supervisors also granted Franklin Township Fire Company's request to use the Phifer Ice Dam Park for its annual refresher ice rescue training class on March 1.