SEBRING - If the Highlands County recycling program makes the community environmentally "green," then the county is a lot greener today.
For the first time in four years, the drop-off recycling program is again accepting office paper and junk mail.
"That is good news that we want to get out there," said Christy Reed, recycling program manager.
"It opens up new possibilities to glean more revenue and, of course, up our (recycled) tonnage," she said. "More importantly, it's keeping materials - natural resources - out of the landfill that otherwise would be lost forever."
Businesses and individuals have been asking for office/scrap paper and junk mail recycling regularly, Reed said.
Since 2003, only newspaper and cardboard were accepted in the 22 recycling bins around the county, along with plastics and metals.
"We had to discontinue it (office paper/junk mail) because of the economics the county was facing at the time," Reed said. "It was (too) labor intensive," she said, because the various types and grades of paper had to be separated.
With the new technology recently acquired by Southeast Paper Recycling, which picks up and processes the county's recyclables, the different types of paper can be comingled. The only paper products that can't be accepted are envelopes with see-through plastic address windows.
While office paper and junk or bulk mail can now be dropped in the recycling bins, not all of the bins have been relabeled yet to reflect the change.
"If the residents can be patient with us, we are trying to get the SP (Southeast Paper) bins relabeled as soon as possible," Reed said. "It's going to take a little time, probably through December."
Residents participating in the voluntary, drop-off recycling program need to be aware of two changes:
Paper and other fiber products constitute the majority of recyclable materials which go into the garbage and end up in landfills if not recycled, according to Reed.
"We're excited about (again) tapping into this source of recycled material, and we'll have to look at it again three to six months down the road to see how it's affecting our (recycled) tonnage increase," she said.
Besides being good for the county's budget, in reduced landfill costs and increased recycling revenue, recycling all kinds of paper is good for the environment, Reed said.
"Everybody's got paper" in their personal waste stream, she said. "Not everybody, for example, has diapers. But everybody has paper ...
"Does it save trees?" she added. "Yes, of course it saves trees."
About encouraging people to protect natural resources by recycling, Reed compares it to voting for president in a country of 300 million people.
"One (bundle of paper) is just like one vote to elect the president," she said. "Does your one vote count? If everybody is doing their part, collectively it will make a huge difference."
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