Recycling center accepts additional items

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Joanna M. Kresge
  • 2nd Bomb Wing Public Affairs
BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. --  As of Oct. 1, the base recycling center has expanded its recycling program to help all users.

The center, which is now under Air Force Global Strike Command, lost funding for their recycling program more than two years ago and had to cut back on manning and items accepted.

"At the time, the government funding that was paying for 10 contracted personnel was cut, then the world-wide recycling markets just took a dive," said Mr. Alfredo Garza, Barksdale recycling manager. "For example, cardboard, our biggest commodity, was selling for $250 a ton. After the economy slowed down, it went down to $15 a ton - pretty much over night."

The recycling center, which until recently only accepted cardboard and high-grade paper now accepts: mixed paper, bagged shredded paper, junk mail, brown bags, newspapers, magazines, catalogs, polyethylene terephthalate No. 1 plastic bottles such as water and soda bottles, high-density polyethylene No. 2 plastic jugs such as milk jugs and aluminum cans.

"It's taken about two years, but the commodity markets are slowly coming back" Mr. Garza said.

With the additional accepted recyclables, there are still some restrictions: glass, wood, scrap metal and trash are still not accepted at the recycling center.

"There is just no market for glass in this area," Mr. Garza said. "We've researched all the markets, tried to sell it and even tried to give it away to local glass companies, but no one wants it since they cannot use it."

On average the United States throws away approximately 25 percent more garbage during the holidays than any other time during the year. To help alleviate some of that waste the center will be gathering wrapping paper and Christmas trees as they have in past years.

"We collect Christmas trees and give them to the base forestry office," Mr. Garza said. "They'll take the trees and put them into the lakes around base to create fish habitats."

Residents of base housing will not have their recycling collection affected by this change at the recycling center. The contracting company will continue to pick-up recyclables including glass from base housing at least three times per month.

"Our contract has not changed, and it won't change as far as what they pick up," said Andrew Smith, the Landings at Barksdale assistant manager.

Mr. Garza said recycling is not only beneficial to the environment, but also cuts down on trips to the dumpster to throw away bags of trash.

"The more people recycle, the more our items will get used over and over," he said. "Any given aluminum can in use today has been recycled up to 10 times and any cardboard boxes that you get are made of materials recycled at least six times."

Mr. Garza said his biggest concern at the moment is getting previous recyclers to come back out and support the center once again.

"When we stopped taking a lot of the items, I think we got people out of the habit of recycling," he said. "Retirees would come out and drop stuff off, and we had a lot of parents trying to teach their children about recycling; we want to try to get everyone back out here.

"We are going to keep trying to get the word out there and advertise. We are slowly seeing people starting to put recyclables in the bins again," he continued.

The recycling center's drop-off hours are 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Mondays through Fridays and closed on weekends. For more information about the recycling program, call 456-5293.