New recycling center should ease load on county landfills

A recycling center in Columbia County is just days away from opening.

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"I'm glad to see this project coming to fruition," said Keep Columbia County Beautiful Coordinator Jenny Hinton. "I'm excited for everybody to be able to start utilizing it."

The center, located on Chamblin Road next to the new Georgia State Patrol office, will open at 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 5 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Area residents will be able to drop off the following recyclable items: electronics, plastics, newspapers and magazines, aluminum cans, clean food cans, cardboard and office/notebook paper.

Glass products will not be accepted, Hinton added.

The project took about five months to complete, she said.

"We've been talking about constructing this center for some time now," she said. "It's taken us a little while to get to this point, but now that we're here, it's time to look to the future and move forward."

The center is on a one-acre lot with eight recycling bins set up on concrete pads outside the facility. Residents will drive up to the center, where two employees will staff the building and provide assistance, if needed, Hinton said.

"I think our facility is very nice and very streamlined," she said. "I definitely think we're in tune with what people in the rest of the state are doing."

Plastic and newspaper bins will remain behind the Evans Government Complex, but aluminum cans and cardboard will no longer be accepted there, she said.

Also, the county no longer will hold recycling events, such as the electronic recycling event held in September.

"The only thing we may do is some type of paper-shredding event at the recycling center every so often," Hinton said.

The project cost about $152,000 and was paid with funds from the Baker Place Road landfill that closed, Barry Smith, director of the county's Community and Leisure Services Division, previously has said.

The facility will remain open from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Saturdays, the center will be open from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m. It will be closed on Wednesdays.

Many residents from throughout the county have shown interest in recycling, Hinton said.

"We're hoping that people are going to do this for the greater good of the community and for our planet," she said. "It's a small step right now, but it'll eventually become a larger step as we continue to grow."