GULF SHORES, AL - Last year was the biggest of the four annual post-Christmas ecycling days for citizens of Pleasure Island, an effort led by the Coastal Alabama Business Chamber.

But there was a reason for that. Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and the chamber split the cost for the recycling of TVs and computer monitors.

“Those are the two types of items people can’t drop off for free,” Chamber President and CEO Ed Rodriguez said. “They have to pay. The thinking was if people had to pay it was going to be a deterrent to them to recycle.”

But not anymore. The three entities picked up the estimated $11,000 it cost for those items at the 2015 event. The collection point will again be the Saltwater Pavilion at Gulf State Park.

Steve Jones, a Gulf Shores city councilman and active chamber volunteer especially in the ecycle effort, isn’t sure if this year’s free event can top 2015 numbers.

“It was big, our biggest day because so many more people participated because they knew it was going to be free,” Jones said. “We did 8,500 pounds of paper, over 11,000 pounds of TVs and 14,760 pounds of everything else. Anything that can be plugged in can brought. White goods, microwaves, anything that can be plugged in can be brought.”

Accepted items include paper document for shredding, computers, monitors, TV and just about any electronic device.

The only charge would be if someone wants a discarded hard drive to be destroyed to protect files on it from being copied or retrieved.

“If people want to securely destroy a hard drive that hard drive has to be brought in separately by itself,” Jones said. “For $10 they will securely shred it at their facility in Pensacola.

Hard drives inside computers must be removed to be shredded.

“If you just bring in a tower that has a hard drive in there it’s just going to the other vendor and will not be securely destroyed,” Jones said. “Anything you want securely destroyed has to be detached and handed directly to them.”

Jones said lots of people ask about leaving household batteries but those aren’t eligible.

“They do not accept any kind of batteries,” Jones said. “A lot of people think they can bring household batteries but we cannot accept any of those. If a battery that’s part of a computer that’s a different thing.”

Jones said don’t let a little rain stop you from bringing out your recyclables. There will be a dry drive-thru.

“Every year we decided to go ahead and put a big tent out there so people can pull in, we can have them drive under a tent, drop their stuff off and leave it there,” Jones said. “We provide a driveway for people to pull through and drop off if necessary. We’ll have volunteer help in case people don’t want to get out and they can pull the stuff out of the trunk if they want.”