They came without ribbons. They came without tags, but they came with packages, boxes and bags.
To paraphrase Dr. Seuss, hundreds of people brought items Saturday for recycling to the annual America Recycles Day at Golden East Crossing mall.
“We usually get an average of 120 vehicles, but this could be more,” Keep America Beautiful of Nash and Edgecombe Counties Coordinator Stephanie Collins said as she surveyed the serpentine line of cars snaking around cones through the two JCPenney’s parking lots. Fifty cars were counted during the first hour in one of two lines.
Allison Gardner, administrator of the Rocky Mount Environmental Services Division, was beaming.
“This turnout is great,” she said. “It helps out a lot.”
Four stations for hazardous household waste, paper to be shredded, electronics and prescription drugs were manned, respectively, by Clean Harbors workers, Shred It, city employees and Rocky Mount police officers.
Miriam Espinosa, environmental manager at Cummins Rocky Mount Engine Plant, said Clean Harbors of Raleigh was sponsored by Cummins as part of its pledge to be involved in the community. Clean Harbors workers wearing aprons, gloves or masks accepted paints, stains, pesticides, cleaning chemicals and batteries, sorting the contents of boxes and bags for safe transport in drums.
Flammable or corrosive materials were marked and stored.
“They have to separate what comes in into what can be recycled if possible or safely neutralized for disposal,” Espinosa said, adding that Cummins had to get a Temporary Hazardous Waste permit for the event.
Gabe Rosser of Rocky Mount brought 20 years’ worth of income tax papers to be shredded.
“Not everybody has a shredder,” he said. “This was a good idea. You don’t need anything with your Social Security number on it to end up in the wrong hands.”
Keep America Beautiful asked for donations to help pay for renting the Shred It truck, which cost about $700-$800, although attendance at the recycling event was free.
“I try to keep everything I can out of the landfill,” said Collins, who invited Habitat For Humanity to come with a truck.
Volunteers asked participants if any of their discarded electronics worked, and those that did were shunted to the truck. Several bicycles, televisions, VCRs and piles of books were saved from destruction in hopes of ending up in appreciative hands. City employees manhandled broken electronics into a truck to end up at Synergy, an electronics recycling company. Cardboard from donation boxes landed in another truck.
Prescription drugs were surrendered to police officers, who took the medications back to the station, where it will be processed by evidence technicians in order to keep it off the streets.
Keep America Beautiful holds three recycling events each year: one in March in Nashville and another in April in Tarboro. The Rocky Mount event is the largest of the three.
