GULF SHORES, AL – The city’s former “recycling center” was an unholy mess.

Out under the trees behind the city hall annex on the south side of Clubhouse Drive, Mayor Robert Craft could look out of his window onto the scattering of belongings shed by residents.

“They’re used to just dropping off what they want then it’s out of sight, out of mind,” Assistant Public Works Director Noel Hand said. “Allied Waste picked that up, took it to Tarpon Paper and that was their problem.”

Thanks to a $226,000 grant from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management it’s now the City of Gulf Shores’ “problem.”

“We have relocated our drop-off center which was at 200 Clubhouse Drive so all the dumpsters back there are in the process of being removed,” Hand said. “We have moved it to 160 W. 36^th Ave.” Or the Public Works Shop.

At least one resident, Kathy Peters, is happy with the change. She was at the West 36^th Avenue site on April 27 unloading her recyclables from the back of her SUV into bins sorted by paper, plastic, aluminum, metal electronics and two pens for discarded cardboard.

“I’m glad you’re doing this so people can’t just dump anything like they were doing at the other place,” Peters said. “I was wondering if anything ever got recycled because everybody was just dumping anything in there. That was a nightmare down there. This is a good start.”

Peters said she lived in California in the 1970s and saw firsthand an extensive recycling program.

“We had to recycle at work and everything,” she said, grabbing a bag of plastic containers from her car. “Now I feel guilty if I throw away anything because we hardly had any trash because they took everything. Lightbulbs, everything. This is good.”

Now, instead of a conglomerate mess trucked to Tarpon Paper in Loxley, the city collects into the segregated bins, dumps the individual loads into larger roll-off containers. The material is picked up by Wise Recycling who pays the city for the materials.

“We do have this segregated,” Hand said walking through the facility. “This is not a place to just go drop off unwanted stuff. We have the metal, aluminum, cardboard, paper and everything is segregated to be dropped off. What’s new now is we are accepting glass and electronics.”

The glass, which presents a unique challenge, is only of the drinking glass, beverage bottles and pickle jar variety. Automobile glass, household windows, lightbulbs, light fixtures and the like are not accepted.

“We’re accepting glass and trying to promote the education of please don’t contaminate the glass,” Hand said. “Somebody has to go through that glass to be able to make sure when it’s pulverized they can’t have any other items that are in it.

“The glass, once it becomes too contaminated it’s just going to be disposed of. We’re not going to let our guys to try to sort out the glass. If it’s dangerous I’ve already told them to just chuck it.”

Public Works Director Mark Acreman emphasized the only place the city will accept glass for recycling is the new center. Glass is still not accepted in the city’s curbside recycling program or recycling trailers in different locations in the city.

“We want to be able to monitor the glass more closely,” Hand said. “The recycling center is under surveillance 24 hours a day.”

Also not accepted are motor oils, tires, clothing, Styrofoam including packaging, water hoses, vegetation debris or household trash.

BEACH RECYCLING

Items from the beach are all collected in one batch and are brought to the center for sorting. The grant for ADEM funded a conveyor system which picks up the beach recyclables, drops it inside the center to workers who sort it by hand.

“We want to be able to stream line this to make recycling right,” Hand said. “We’re in a learning process ever since we moved to the shop to see this is done correctly.”