County employees may soon be separating aluminum cans from newspapers and glass when they throw things away on the job.

The Centre County Board of Commissioners has asked a specially-designed committee to prepare recommendations on an internal recycling plan for county-owned and leased buildings, said Larry Bickford, Centre County director of administrations.

Committee members include Bickford; Irene Ferrara, recycling coordinator for the Solid Waste Authority; Bob Donaldson, director of the Planning Commission and Larry Spotts, county maintenance superintendent.

Bickford said he wants the county government to set the example and implement a recycling plan before other county businesses and organizations implement their plans.

A state recycling ordinance mandates that municipalities such as State College Borough, which have populations greater than 10,000, must have recycling programs for all residential, commercial, institutional, municipal and multi-family establishments, Ferrara said.

The deadline for implementing a recycling plan is September 1990.

"We don't want to wait until (the waste authority) gets to us," Bickford said. The committee plans to submit the recommendations to the board within the next six weeks.

Ferrara said including municipal buildings such as nursing homes, court houses and prisons in the recycling programs will greatly increase the amount of materials recycled in Centre County.

"There are substantially more recyclables from municipal buildings and commercial establishments than from residential homes," she said. "Homes produce more food waste than paper and aluminum."

Now, only residential homes are required to recycle, she said. But in the future, recycling mandates will be extended to all commercial buildings.

Ferrara said the county-wide recycling program will be implemented in three phases: the residential portion, already implemented, covers 12,000 homes; drop-off facilities, where people not required to recycle can drop off recyclables for collection and a cooperative recycling collection program with the University.

The authority will be collecting newspapers, computer paper, all colors of glass containers and metal beverage containers, both aluminum and steel.

Bickford said when the municipal program is implemented, he will invite county businesses and organizations to use the government system as a model.

But it is too early for the commission to give a definite timetable on the program, Ferrara said.

"The scale of the program is large, and there's a long way to go," she said.