Teresa Williams
June 27, 2009 05:14 pm
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THOMASVILLE — Recycling is alive and busy in Thomasville, despite the backup of some collected materials, city officials said.
City of Thomasville Solid Waste Director Nate Tyler said numbers have steadily grown since the city began keeping records in 2001 and revenues have doubled.
“We sort everything, package it up and sell it,” he said. “Sometimes, we have to store recyclable items until the prices go up enough for us to recover program costs. The market is down right now, but it is slowly rebounding and we are still collecting materials.”
An example of the trend in pricing is cardboard, Tyler said.
“At its best, it is $130 a ton, but it dropped to its worst at $20 a ton. It has worked its way up to about $70 a ton and we’ve had 20-30 loads stored, waiting for the price to rebound. We should start selling a few loads.”
Currently, the prices of plastic, aluminum and tin are also down, he said, but the city is selling some tonnage due to space constraints.
The program’s budget for 2008 was approximately $55,000, but it brought in approximately $95,000 from sales of recyclable materials, Tyler said. The excess went back into funding the program.
“The city council and city manager have dictated that the program hold the line on expenses and have an end user for all recyclable materials. Right now, because materials are not selling at the same value, we may get less money this year, but we are hoping to hold the line on expenses.”
Bob Dyksterhouse, member of the Clean & Green Committee, said the program has “greatly improved” in the past year.
“The city has made it easier for individuals, businesses and homeowners to recycle,” he said. “There are three drop-off sites and the city has expanded to accept plastic classes one through seven, which opens up a whole lot of stuff that would otherwise go to the landfill.”
The city’s recycling program began in the 1990s.
In April 1998, it consisted of two drop-off centers — one at Ga. 122 and the other at Crawford Street and Remington Avenue — where citizens could bring their newspaper, cardboard and metal cans.
This process involved an out of town vender, Tyler said, who pulled the containers to a site where the presorted items were resorted, removing any garbage.
“Each step of the process involved a fee being charged for service,” he said. “On paper, the vendor purchased the materials; however, due to the fees for service, we ended up owing the vendor for the privilege of recycling.”
In 1999, the city continued the drop-off center concept, but hired an inmate detail from Thomas County. Two vertical balers were purchased and installed at the old landfill.
“The first couple of years the recycling system lost money because we were not able to process enough material to offset costs,” Tyler said. “Currently, because of the prices paid for recycled materials, we are able to pay our bills and produce small excess revenues.”
Today, there are recycling centers open 24 hours a day that accept materials from both city and county residents.
There are two on Remington Avenue — one at Butler-Mason YMCA and the other behind the Marguerite Neel Williams Boys & Girls Club — and the other at Wal-Mart.
Recyclable items accepted include cardboard, newspaper, magazines, tin cans, aluminum cans, glass and office paper. The city disposes of accepted recyclable materials only if they have been contaminated.
“The materials are dropped into large capacity containers that have divided compartments,” Tyler explained. “These large cans are pulled to the baling center on Davenport Drive. At the center, inmates sort and separate the material and bale it for transport and delivery to the mills.”
Materials are currently shipped for sale in Georgia, Florida and Alabama.
In 2008, according to a solid waste report, vendors from Thomasville, Albany, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Fla., and Tallahassee, Fla., recycled 1,965 tons of items. This resulted in a savings of $38,761 in landfill costs.
“We sell the material and use the funds to offset the expense of running the program,” Tyler said.
The early years garnered approximately 643 tons of materials a year, he said. Today, the program receives approximately 2,000 tons a year.
“The increase is due in part to commercial businesses and their using the centers to recycle cardboard and reduce their waste removal costs,” he said.
Dyksterhouse said the city has doubled its recycling efforts in the past year, an “amazing” feat.
“The state has a recycling rate of 18 percent and, right now, the city is around 17.4 percent. That is progress, but it is still such a small piece. There is a lot of room for expansion in the program.”
Ways he proposes this expansion continue is by actively educating the public on the program, curbside recycling and getting the county more active in the endeavor.
Tyler said the city offers litter reduction services, including yearly community-wide clean-up campaigns, and is also looking at reviving its “Adopt-A-Mile” program.
Other possibilities are additional containers or servicing the drop-off centers more frequently to keep up with the demand, as well as allowing mixing of different items in containers at sites in order to save space.
Bobbie Arnold, a local recycling enthusiast, said she does not want to see the landfills reach capacity and Earth being polluted.
“Recycling is going to save my Earth, but number two, it will keep costs from getting higher for products we already use,” she said.
Arnold, a city employee, said people call at least a couple of times a week inquiring about recycling because going “Green” has become a very popular idea.
“I ask people to take a few minutes to think of the future,” she said. “Lets try and improve our community. It is a beautiful place, let’s keep it that way.”
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