Three more recycling bins will be placed across Pike County in June as part of a cooperative grant from the state to reduce the trash tonnage in the area.
McComb, in partnership with Pike County, Osyka, Magnolia and Summit, received $123,916 from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality to expand recycling efforts that have been centralized in McComb for the last year.
Waste Management will place a bin in Magnolia, Summit and Osyka and waste coordinator program manager Artis Brown said the containers would be ready for the June 15 program kickoff.
The goal is to reduce trash in the area by 25 percent and bring curbside recycling to the county by June 2015.
McComb and Pike County each devoted $7,500 to the project,, Magnolia and Summit contributed $1,000 each and Osyka gave $500.
Though the recycling bin at Fire Station No. 4 on Parklane Road in McComb has a compactor on it, the other three will not. The bin in McComb can hold up to eight tons; the other three will hold up to three tons. Brown plans to have them emptied about twice a month.
Each site will have the same signage and security cameras as the McComb location, and Brown said there is money in the budget for fencing if the municipalities want it.
The new bins will accept the same recyclables: most forms of aluminum, paper and plastic are accepted, while glass is not. The full list is on Keep Pike County Beautiful’s website, but Brown said she will be making a separate Facebook account for the project.
This grant also comes at the tail end of the Waste Management Think Green grant that MComb was awarded last year to begin the recycling project. Keep Pike County Beautiful was instrumental in overseeing that project, and Brown said she would continue to partner with the group for the coming year.
One reason Brown said McComb Mayor Whitney Rawlings went after the Recycling Pike County Cooperative grant is because of the response of the citizens with the previous grant.
“The citizens, they’ve been exceptional,” Brown said. “We have not had one foreign material put in the bin on Parklane Road.”
Brown said her job is to travel to the four bins on a regular basis as well as educate the public on the importance of recycling.
Brown will spend the summer preparing presentations for students at North Pike, McComb and South Pike schools. She also plans to visit local town boards and Pike County supervisors on a quarterly basis to report any recurring problems and other updates as well as keep the public informed through K106 broadcasts.
