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Some West College Park Civic Association members are worried that a new recycling facility could create a traffic headache for area residents.

The University of Maryland, College Park, plans to relocate its recycling facility off campus to the former Metzerott Road landfill, across from the university observatory in College Park. The move will help to clear room for the university's $900 million East Campus development.

The proposed site is occupied by university mailing and maintenance facilities, including a shuttle bus depot that officials plan to relocate onto land currently occupied by the recycling center.

"I thought there were many other options they could've taken," said Julius Hoffman, a College Park resident and WCPCA member. "They could've gone to the city and piggybacked on their recycling facility."

The current recycling center sits on campus on about 0.75 acres of parking lot east of the Comcast Center. The new facility would occupy about one acre of paved land on the landfill, said Ann Wylie, the university's vice president of administrative affairs.

"We can accommodate the majority of those facilities on our campus but not all of them," Wylie said. "The recycling facilities ... are something that more readily would fit with the Metzerott site."

Residents voiced their concerns during a June 15 meeting with Wylie at the College Park Woods Swim Club. Their main worry was that recycling trucks could slow traffic or drop debris along Metzerott Road.

"We are affected already by a lot of the traffic from the university," said state Del. Joseline Peña-Melnyk (D-Dist. 21) of College Park, who helped organize the meeting. "I want to make sure that the community's heard."

Wylie said only a handful of trucks would travel the route each day during business hours. They would deliver and pick up waste from the center, which separates but does not actually treat recyclables.

The new facility would be about a mile away from the existing one.

"We're talking about four box trucks a day coming in there [daily], maybe two to three pickup trucks a day and one heavy truck three or four times a week," Wylie said. "It's not a significant amount of traffic."

Still, some residents worried the university could eventually increase truck traffic.

"I think they have reason to distrust because of turnover in representation at the University of Maryland," said City Councilwoman Karen Hampton (Dist. 4), who lives in College Park Woods and attended the meeting. "One person promises something and then another person comes and takes their place."

No timetable has been set for the recycling center's relocation.

The East Campus project is currently on hold and university officials hope to break ground next year, if not later. No completion date has been set.

E-mail David Hill at dhill@gazette.net.