Candia officials say the more than 20 large bailed stacks of soda cans, plastic bottles and newspapers at the new recycling center are a telltale sign of the nation’s economic woes.

“We’ve met with (recyclers), and the market is null and void right now,” said Solid Waste Committee member Amanda Soares. “A lot of this stuff was shipped overseas, and right now, the market is pretty much flat. We’re kind of hoarding some of the commodities until it goes back up.”

Officials hoped early on that the recycling center, which opened its doors less than six months ago, would boost the town’s recycling income to as much as $100,000 annually. In 2007, the town brought in slightly more than $60,000, and recycling center operator Chuck Whitcher and Soares both said the town had been getting a good price for its commodities until mid-autumn.

Soares said that before Thanksgiving, the town had already earned around $50,000, and the price for a ton of old newspapers peaked at $100. But shortly afterward, she said that same ton of newsprint was valued at a paltry 5 cents, and Whitcher said this crashing market value was prefaced by a nearrecord high only weeks earlier.

Today, the bottom floor of the recycling center has a temporary “wall” of crushed and bailed cans, cardboard and other commodities positioned up against the massive concrete containers that hold back tens of thousands of cans, bottles and plastic jugs.

At the recycling center’s second story, where residents throw their recyclables, the level of cans in some areas is almost as high as the concrete walls themselves.

“This has been going on for a few months now,” Whitcher said. “We’re just trying to stockpile everything. When we get to the point where we don’t have storage anymore here or in our trailers, we have to get rid of it.”

Whitcher said the town has already paid to get rid of one shipment of paper recently, but the invoice has not been received yet. While the impromptu stockpiling is a situation that officials never described in the lead-in to the center’s opening, the center itself is still clean and organized, and Whitcher said it makes a good visual impression on how much trash and recyclables are generated by the town of about 4,100 residents.

“And Candia is a pretty small town,” said Whitcher as he looked out over the growing pile of soda cans.

Whitcher said the recycled items are not winding up buried in landfills, and the “hoarding” is still a cheaper option to the town than burying trash. As of Jan. 29, Whitcher said one exterior storage trailer was three-quarters full while another was half-full, and the stockpile is not an obstacle for residents who stop by to get rid of their trash.

Fire Chief Rudy Cartier said the pile-up is becoming “a moderate concern” for himself and his department.

“A lot of things were taken out of the original design (for the center),” he said. “There’s no fire suppression system in there at all, and there’s also no cistern. But we at least have a fire alarm system in there, and there are a couple 30,000-gallon cisterns in the area.”