Mid-Iowa Workshops, Inc. is a private, non-profit company that employs around 130 people with physical and cognitive disabilities at its headquarters, 909 S. 14th Ave., and throughout the community. About 25 businesses from all over the country (including John Deere, TIG Distributing, the Boulder Company, Lennox and Emerson Process Management) have MIW workers package, label, assemble, sew, sort, collate, bag and recycle their products and goods. Notably, MIW handles all commercial and residential recycling in Marshall County.

One of its three bailers has been on the fritz for a year and half. At 12-feet tall and 16,000 pounds, it’s used to process plastic and tin recyclables. Thanks to a donation from the Knights of Columbus, that repair will be made in late June.

“We’ve been using it on a very limited basis until it’s repaired — a few hours a day instead of all day — and we needed to get that repaired so we don’t get a backlog of recyclables waiting to be processed,” MIW President/CEO Rich Byers said.

The $5,000 donation toward the needed repair came from the Knight’s Campaign for People with Intellectual Disabilities (CPID) Drive (publicly known as the Tootsie Roll Drives). Knights of Columbus District Deputy Eldon Schneider with Council #966 reached out to MIW when he learned there was surplus funds available to donate to various causes throughout Iowa.

“We always have capital improvement needs. (The Knights) have been supportive of us for many years,” Byers said.

Having the bailer fully-functional will ensure the 15 MIW workers who run the machine can use it consistently.

The July 2018 tornado has hampered MIW’s bottom line.

“Lennox is our largest production customer. When the tornado hit, we lost about $70,000 in planned revenue because we do 15-20 different jobs for them every day, and we didn’t deliver them for three months or better. And then when they started back up to operational, they’d order a little bit, and they’re almost back to 100 percent for orders,” Byers said. “It was devastating for our revenue stream. And while we didn’t let anyone go, we moved them around to different operations and jobs.”

Byers said tin is sold locally to M. Gervich & Sons by the semi load, and cardboard and paper are brokered by the semi load to whatever entity is paying the most for it. Glass that is collected is sent out of town for processing.

Byers said the repair is expected to keep the bailer functional for 20 years.

“It would have cost $60,000 to replace it, but the money from the Knights of Columbus and some other smaller donations will pay to repair it instead,” he said. “This is good for us (as a company) and good for the consumer.”