Recycling
Adopt-a-Highway and Keep the Midlands Beautiful work in conjunction to promote environmental awareness and preservation. Adopt-A-Highway and Adopt-A-Street groups are strongly encouraged to recycle all that they can! Recycling conserves natural resources, reduces the need for landfills, and stimulates the development of green technology and green jobs.
Recycling Tips
1 Find out what materials are recyclable in your area and where you can take them after each pickup. Click here for a list of area drop-off recycling centers. The three most common recyclable items found near road ways are aluminum cans, plastic drink containers, and glass bottles.
2. Learn how the materials must be prepared before they can be taken to the recycling center, i.e. all lids must be removed, newspapers should be dry, etc.
3. Decide how your group will collect the recyclables during the cleanup. For instance, you may want to give each volunteer a bag for trash and then have each pair or team designate one additional bag for recyclables. Have each team bring their recyclables to a designated location, where a volunteer sorter will separate the recyclable materials and prepare them for recycling (remove lids, etc…).
4. Before the pickup, explain to your group members what recyclables you want them to look for and to keep separate from the other trash. Show some examples of recyclable materials picked up off the road.
5. Assign volunteers to transport the recyclables to a drop-off recycling center after each pickup. If it has not already been done at the project site, these volunteers will need to prepare the recyclables (remove lids; rinse excessive dirt from glass) and separate them by type (aluminum in one bag and glass bottles in another) before they take the recyclables to the recycling center.
6. Please track how much you recycle versus how much you throw away. This could be as simple as keeping separate counts of the number of bags of trash and number of bags of recyclable materials. Be sure to report these numbers to both the group and Keep the Midlands Beautiful.
If you have any questions about recycling, please call Keep the Midlands Beautiful at (803) 733-1139 or e-mail info@KeepTheMidlandsBeautiful.org.
