HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - As we continue to see Madison County grow, so do the programs serving the people. One example is the Recycling Alliance of North Alabama.
RANA Executive Director Doc Holladay said the program is serving about 77,700 households, nearly twice as much as the old program. The program has been around for just more than 18 months now after starting in August of 2019.
Holladay said they’re continuing to grow each month, as well, putting out an additional 900 recycling carts each month.
“Not only are we collecting more of the right materials, but we actually have about 600 households per month still asking for a new cart, to start the program,” he said. “And about 300 households a month are saying, ‘Hey, I’ve outgrown this one cart, I need a second cart,’” Holladay said.
Holladay said they’re recycling about 40% more than the old program and are also focused on keeping contamination low. So far, he said they have about 50% to 60% less contamination.
But, there are still limitations, Holladay said there is not a recyclery here, so they have to truck the reusable materials to Chattanooga.
Holladay said this is a factor limiting expansion of the program, right now they only serve single-family households. People who live in apartments or those working in commercial businesses have no easy way to recycle.
“Right now theres not a great outlet for people who don’t live in single -family households or those commercial businesses,” Holladay said. “And we think as the community comes out of this pandemic, that you’ll have more people going back to their offices to work and I think that’ll create the demand again to recycle more.”
Holladay said he doesn’t have a crystal ball but hopes a recyclery is started sometime in the future and they can make recycling even more accessible in Madison County.
“The employers we attract in this region are really environmentally conscious and, so I think there needs will help drive what we as a community do in our recycling efforts and reducing our carbon footprint,” Holladay said.
Holladay also said they’ve expanded their household hazardous waste collection. They now have a facility that is open five days a week.
“We went form recycling about 145,000 pounds of electronic waste, to doing 289,000 pounds last year,” he said. “We recycled 1,700 gallons of paint that was donated to Habitat For Humanity, we doubled the amount of used motor oil that was taken back and we took in over 21,000 lead acid batteries.”
Holladay said this is a program free of charge and he wants to make sure the public knows about it.