December 28, 2009
Recyclers undeterred: Some Montgomery residents continue practice despite overall drop in participation
By Jill Nolin
It's a most unnatural deed for Donna Farrior, but if she must, she will throw away her plastic bottles -- for now.
The Montgomery resident has recycled in her home for so long that it has become a lifestyle for her. She recycles everything that the city's new recycling program will accept.
But Farrior is in the minority.
When Montgomery ended its curbside recycling program because of budget cuts this year, it also ended the recycling efforts of the majority of Montgomery households. Since the city stopped pickups it is estimated that the number of households that recycle in the city has dropped from about 21,000 to about 3,000.
It hasn't dissuaded Farrior, who uses cloth bags when she buys groceries, drinks water from a glass instead of plastic bottles, and yes, still recycles.
"I still recycle. The hardest thing is just remembering which Saturday to get it up there (to the drop-off location)," said Farrior, who lives off of Carter Hill Road in the midtown area. (Mount Scrap will take No. 1 and No. 2 plastics, but that would require Farrior to make a special trip for just plastic bottles.)
For Farrior, recycling is engrained in her. So when the city ended its curbside recycling program, which started in 1989, she adjusted and continued to recycle. She collects the recyclable items in her garage and drops them off at Dannelly Elementary School on Carter Hill Road on the first and third Saturdays.
Al Cantrell, who owns Al's Flowers in the Mulberry business district, was similarly undeterred -- although disappointed -- when the city nixed curbside recycling.
"I am a recycling freak. I recycle everything," he said. "I just feel like it's the right thing to do. I don't feel like we always need to make a decision money-wise."
"(The trash) isn't going anywhere. I'm just real, real adamant about it. We need to be recycling for the future generations and for the world," Cantrell said.
Not all of Cantrell's friends are as devoted. When recycling meant holding onto the recyclable items for a couple weeks, if not longer sometimes, and then driving to a drop-off location, some lost interest.
Farrior and Cantrell are among the avid recycling participants who have followed the city from the curbside program to the drop-off system that replaced it. But that move has lost many of the other participants who would recycle when recycling was as convenient as putting items in a bag and putting it by the road.
Whereas about 30 percent of Montgomery's 70,000 households, or roughly about 21,000 households, participated in the curbside recycling program, only about 3,000 people are now bringing their recyclable items at one of the city's drop-off points, according to Susan Carmichael, program director.
"The participation was there, especially in the east," she said. "I think, on the whole, it was an excellent program. But in the big picture, the numbers just didn't make sense."
A major issue was the amount of the recyclable items that ended up being recycled -- or rather, the amount that didn't.
The city takes its recyclable items to McInnis Recycling Center on Norman Bridge Road, but the program could not handle the workload, and it was not feasible to take the recycling to another center.
The result was that many of the orange bags in which residents put materials they believed were being recycled were instead being dumped at the city landfill.
It's clear that the city lost the majority of the recycling participants when the convenience of curbside recycling was lost.
Montgomery has entered into a contract with a Huntsville company to use a cutting-edge technology that could eventually recycle virtually all of the city's garbage, not just items such as paper, plastic or glass that have long been seen as recyclable. But even if it is as successful as the city and the company hope, that would be years down the road.
Carmichael said the Clean City Commission, which oversees the recycling program, wants to do something now, and that the best way to accomplish this is to try to bring back some of that convenience.
"We just want to keep recycling alive," Carmichael said.
The goal is to get as many recycling containers as possible out in the nine City Council districts. With the city's original plan for drop-off recycling, a drop-off point is offered in each district on the first and third Saturday of each month.
The containers would give participants the opportunity to drop off their recyclable items whenever they wanted to, not just on the designated Saturdays.
The containers are available, but the city needs locations for the containers. Carmichael said she is trying to work with churches, schools, businesses and neighborhoods to identify locations.
Some organizations have expressed apprehension about playing host to a container out of fear that the containers would become a dumping point for all garbage. Carmichael said the companies, J.B. Waste Connections and Mount Scrap, would monitor the containers to deter such activity.
Carmichael said a news conference will be held in January to announce the locations of these containers. Anyone interested in having a container on their property can call the Clean City Commission at 241-2925 to make the arrangements.
Eastern Hills Baptist Church at 3604 Pleasant Ridge Road, is one of the Montgomery churches that have agreed to have a container placed on its property. The container is already in place behind the church.
Dan Harrison, administrator at the church, said the church wanted to do what it could to help the recycling program.
"It's really sad because I've only lived here for about eight months and other cities I've lived in have had (curbside recycling programs). For the capital city not to have one is pretty bad," Harrison said.
Additional Facts
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Christmas tree recycling: All old trees can be brought to the Saturday trash collection points Jan. 2. The recycled trees are mulched or used for fish hatcheries in local lakes. Trees put out by the road are not recycled.
Drop-off sites: Aluminum, paper and cardboard are accepted at the following drop-off sites on the first and third Saturday of each month:
Halcyon Elementary
Goodwyn Jr. High
Dannelly Elementary
Wares Ferry Elementary
Peter Crump Elementary
Bellingrath Jr. High
Southlawn Elementary
Drop-off containers are also available anytime at McInnis Recycling Center on 4341 Norman Bridge Road and Mount Scrap Material Co. at 824 N. Decatur St. McInnis will only take paper, aluminum and cardboard, and Mount Scrap will take those items plus Nos. 1 and 2 plastics.
The new drop-off containers will be announced in January. The Mount Scrap containers will take only newspaper and magazines. The J.B. Waste Connections containers, which are divided in halves, will take mixed paper and cardboard in one part and plastic and metals in the other.
Source: The city of Montgomery