Recycling pick-up offered to county residents

In order to increase recycling habits in Santa Rosa County, Emerald Waste Services has started a pick-up recycling program that went into affect Feb. 1.

EWS is offering the service free of charge to available customers in its service areas.  EWS has been sending out information mailers for the past two months informing its customers of the service. 

“We sent out two mailings to our customers, an initial in December, and a second one in January,” said Barry Barter, media spokesman for EWS

EWS, which serves the Gulf Coast and Central Florida regions will continue to provide twice per week service and on Feb. 1, started dispersing a separate truck to handle recyclables.  For customer’s convenience, EWS is scheduling both trash and recycling pick-ups on the same day.

“We will still pick-up twice a week at homes, but to make it easier for our customers, we will provide the recycling and garbage pick-ups on the same day,” Barter said.  

Bartley estimated there were around 10,000 Santa Rosa county customers out of its 135,000, most being in the south end of the county.  Several households in the north end of the county may not receive the recycling service depending on their location.  These households were notified by EWS.

“We had to look at density rates, and looked at how many people recycled in a certain area,” Bartley said. “We have most density in the southern part of the county.

“There are a number of drop-off centers, and in the second letter (sent to customers), we identified those to people.”

According to the Santa Rosa Recycling Department, there are approximately 21 drop-off stations in the northern part of the county. 

EWS is following in the footsteps of two other companies, Allied Waste and Waste Pro that participate in curbside recycling pick-up in the county.

One of the initial reasons for the recycling program according to Bartley was to save customers money.  As landfills begin to fill up, customer’s wallets begin to empty. 

“Landfills disposal rates are always increasing, and that hits us, and eventually affects our customers,” Bartley said. “If we can encourage recycling, less waste will go into landfills, and it will keep costs down.”

Floyd Rentz, the Santa Rosa County recycling manager said Santa Rosa County, and other West Florida areas have always been pristine real estate for landfills because of the price of land. 

“The land down here is much cheaper, and people can afford to build landfills,” Rentz said.

But even still, the dumps are filling up fast with garbage, and Santa Rosa County is moving forward in the recycyling movement.

“There are two other haulers that offer recycling pick-up services at homes,” Rentz said.  “We encourage people to participate in curbside recycling. 

“We’re catching up with other states when it comes to recycling.”

Bart Begley, Emerald Waste CEO & President, said the company is hoping to make a difference with its new service. “Participating in this program will reduce what is sent to the landfill and increase what is recycled. Plus, it helps fight rising cost for us all,” Begley said. 

Glass and plastic bottles are usual recycling candidates, but items such as junk mail can be thrown into the bin as well.

“All plastic containers, if it has a logo number one through five on it, it can be recycled,” Bartley said. 

Items such as plastic bags, which are popular among recycling enthusiasts cannot be recycled. 

“People think bags can be recycled, but only things that can easily be taken and recycled are one through five numbered containers,” Barkley said. 

Barkley said the new recycling initiative should get people enthused to recycle. 

“Recycling has to be easy for people to do or they won’t do it,” Barkley said. “If it takes too much time to go to a drop-off center, people won’t do it.  This is making it convenient for our customers.”

Rentz said residents should think green to not only save the county, but keep costs down.

“Recycling extends the life of our landfills,” Rentz said.  “The right thing to do is not put stuff in landfills that don’t have to be there.”

A complete list of recycling drop-off locations can be found at http://www.santarosa.fl.gov/recycle/index.html.

Items eligible for recycling:

Aluminum & tin cans

Newspapers

Computer paper

Phone books

Junk mail

Magazines

Plastics with recycle symbol #1 through #5

Glass jars and bottles that are clear, brown, or green

Cardboard that is flattened and no larger than 3’x3’