The brand new recycling facility at the Lumpkin County Transfer Station is finally open for business; while a soft opening to the public actually began last week, the official ribbon-cutting ceremony took place Monday morning at 9 a.m.
County Manager Chris Dockery welcomed a bevy of local elected officials to the big unveiling, including State Senator Steve Gooch, Mayor JoAnne Taylor, City Councilmen Ross Shirley and Johnny Ariemma, and County Commissioners Tucker Greene, Dr. Bobby Mayfield and Rhett Stringer.
“Thanks to everybody for taking an opportunity to come up here this morning to help us celebrate what we’ve been working on for a long time,” Dockery told the crowd ahead of the formal ribbon-cutting.
“Recycling is something that I think is important. It’s the right thing to do. It’s not intended to be a money-maker, I think we all recognize that. But we wanted to make sure when we did this, we did it right. That’s the reason we invested around $521,000 to make this project come to fruition,” he added.
The new center will be open every Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and has separate bins for recycling cardboard, mixed paper, #1 and #2 plastics, aluminum & steel cans, glass and even scrap metal.
There are also dumpsters where bagged household garbage can be deposited in the same area as the recycling with a paid ticket.
HAPPY OCCASION
During his introductory remarks, Dockery gave special thanks to Gooch for laying the groundwork for recycling in the County many years ago.
“He established the recycling center off of Red Oak Flats [Rd.], which served the County for many years. We thought that it would be better used if we moved it here in town and co-located it with our transfer station. So Senator, thank you for your foresight and understanding the importance of recycling,” Dockery said.
Dockery indicated that Commissioner Jeff Moran was traveling and could not make it, but thanked the rest of his board for their commitment to the project.
He also singled out members of the County staff for praise, including Director of Operations Ashley Peck, Fleet Maintenance Manager Randy Allison and Special Projects Manager Charles Trammell.
“They were the ones that worked hard and oversaw the construction and made sure everything was put together,” Dockery said.
He also thanked the County workers tending to the manned facility, as well as members of the County’s Recycling Committee who worked on the project, including Todd Bermann, Karen Ponder, Cas Alldred, Evelyn Shirley, Kim Bell, Sheriff Stacy Jarrard, Robb Nichols, Greene and Mayfield.
“When we put this committee together we wanted to get people who were energetic, who understood the importance of recycling and what it meant for the community … And what you’re seeing today is the result of none other than the hard work of this committee,” Dockery said before handing all of the members of the committee commemorative drinking tumblers.
Lastly, Dockery thanked Transfer Station operator Mark Robinson.
“Without his cooperation and his understanding of the importance of recycling, this wouldn’t be possible because this is a joint effort between him and his contract with the County and also our recycling program,” he explained.
PLEASANT PROCESS
After the ribbon-cutting, Greene said one of the big pieces of their recycling effort is still ongoing, and that is community education.
“We’ve got to get the word out. People need to know about it and how it works, what we take, and so forth,” he said.
The newest additions to the program are bins to recycle glass and scrap metal.
Committee chair Alldred said another big difference is that customers “still have to pay for bagged garbage, but they don’t have to go all the way up there where the trucks are dumping garbage.”
“It’s kind of a one-stop shop over here,” Bell added.
“Another bonus with the plastics is you don’t have to take the lids off. That was a big deal. We had to take all the lids off before we recycled for the last ten years. It’s no longer that way—the lids can stay on the bottles,” Alldred clarified.
Bell said the dedicated recycling attendant is a game-changer for the program.
“One of the big issues we had before was contamination. It rendered it useless, essentially, to recycle,” she said.
Greene pointed out that UNG Associate VP of Facilities Todd Bermann was on the recycling committee as well.
“He’s with UNG. One of the big opportunities is our partnership with UNG and what that is going to look like to increase our recycling,” he said.
Bermann said the university has dropped its previous recycling vendor in favor of sending their recyclables to the County.
“It’s going to be a whole new push to get sorting bins and a shuttle to bring [recycling] over here,” Bermann added.
Robinson took a moment to break down what the new process for customers entering the transfer station will look like.
“Everybody crosses the scales, no matter what,” he said. “If they come up on the scales and just have recycling, they’ll come up here and recycle. Now, if they have bagged garbage with the recycling they’ll get a sticker. If they have three bags and recycling, they’ll get a sticker with three bags and they’ll come up here and hand it to these folks. They’ll recycle what they’ve got to recycle and pull over here and dump their bagged garbage and go right out the gate.”
Robinson said when the recycling bins get full, he’ll hook them up to a truck and take them to Gainesville.
“It takes about an hour-and-a-half to go down there and come back. Two hours maybe, depending on traffic. I’ll be doing the hauling,” he said.
Items that still cannot be recycled at the Transfer Station on Barlow Road include plastic bags, styrofoam, bubble wrap, medical waste, ceramics, used paper plates and napkins, plastic utensils, plastic oil cans, pizza boxes and cat food cans.