Recycling Update Headlines:

 

Public Recycling Drop-Off Has Moved from:

Rainbow Natural Grocery Cooperative, 2807 Old Canton Road

to a location 2.7 miles away:

Global Plastic Recyclers, 841 Palmyra St.

 

24 Hour, 7 Days a Week Glass Recycling Continuing at 841 Palmyra St.

 

The Background Stories:

Over the Christmas and New Year holidays, a combination of increased glass drop offs and some missed glass pickups overwhelmed Rainbow’s small alley. The glass also had way too much non-glass mixed in it and the company that hauls this glass to the remanufacturer in Texas (Strategic Materials) would not accept the glass in that condition. So glass recycling behind Rainbow was suspended.

About 10 days ago we had just about worked out all the issues and were about to recycle glass again at Rainbow, when suddenly another recycling crisis hit. Our cardboard, metals, plastics and paper recycler, Recycling Services, quit making pickups. At first it was broken down trucks, later we were told they were ending that service. We quickly had a mountain of plastic in the alley. We tried to quickly find an alternative recycling service, but the company that had just taken over the Jackson curbside recycling, Global Plastic Recyclers could not come up with a solution, given the equipment they had, to get in and out of our narrow alley. We had no choice, we had to stop accepting recyclable materials.

It took a few days, but we have come up with this solution that makes a lot of sense. The huge volume of cardboard, plastic, glass, metals and paper being recycled behind Rainbow caused many problems. A couple huge truckloads of material was being removed from the alley every day. The hauling fees were costing Rainbow well over $1,000 a month. The Rainbow staff spend a few hours every day trying to clean up and organize all this material – another $1,000 a month cost. Our neighbors sharing the alley with us had had it with the alley being blocked either by recyclers or by the mountains of materials so that their delivery trucks could not reach them. And the Fondren business community saw it as an eyesore.

At the new drop off location, they have almost unlimited capacity to accept recyclable materials. The only material that absolutely must be separated out is glass. There are 14 80-gallon bins lined up on the right side of the driveway going into the recycling warehouse. We have to keep these bins strictly clean glass only. The city of Jackson will haul these bins to the Strategic Materials depot along the railroad tracks in Flowood-Pearl and empty them and return them. Rainbow staff will regularly monitor the bins to insure there is just glass in them, but we need everyone’s help with this.

At the Palmyra site you don’t have to separate your other recyclables (paper-cardboard-plastics-metals). They have people who sort these materials. If you want to help them out, you can separately sort out cardboard and separately sort plastic drink bottles. You will see a pile of plastic drink bottles inside the warehouse on the near left side. Beyond the plastic drink bottles on the left side is a big pile of cardboard. The entire right side of the building is for mixed recyclables.

The recycling of non-glass is available only when their building is open. From 7:00am to 4:00pm Monday through Friday.

We have developed a brochure that has all this information plus detailed information on exactly what can and cannot be recycled here. I’ll try to attach that document in pdf format to this posting.

Beyond this immediate solution to drop off recycling in Jackson, Rainbow Natural Grocery Cooperative is more committed than ever to finding solutions that will increase recycling in our community. We have joined the Mississippi Recycling Coalition and look forward to working with all parties.

A key to greater success in recycling is locating and supporting local businesses that will use these recycled materials to remanufacture products. It is very expensive to haul all that heavy glass all the way to Texas. We need to be remanufacturing products from recyclables locally and Rainbow Cooperative is joining with others to make this happen.

Thanks for your patience while we were organizing these changes!