Toilet paper made from yesterday's news, computers made from clunkers, new tin cans made from old tin cans. Recycling seems to be a fad that is here to stay.
Keep Opelika Beautiful, in conjunction with The East Alabama Recycling Partnership (EARP), will be holding an e-cycling and document shredding event Saturday from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m.
"The event will give citizens and businesses a convenient opportunity to dispose of unused and broken electronics and unused papers in a responsible manner," said Tipi Miller, director of Keep Opelika Beautiful.
The event will allow citizens of Lee County to recycle old appliances, electronics and stacks of paper that may be collecting dust and taking up space in a more environmentally-friendly for little to no charge.
"When someone comes to the event, volunteers will be on hand to unload the electronics from cars and truck," said Miller. "The only charge associated with the event is a $10 for TV's. The tubing in TV's requires an expensive and tedious process to break down. For those wishing to recycle documents, it is a three-box limit."
Miller said the documents will be shredded by East Alabama Shredding and Security, a local company in Auburn. Once the documents are shredded, the paper will be sent to Kimberly Clark to make tissue. The electronics will be collected by Creative Recycling, a Georgia-based company has won multiple awards on their efforts in destroying data.
"We have hosted these events over the past 2 years and recycled 93,000lbs of electronics," Miller said. "These are items that would have otherwise ended up in the landfill."
Keep Opelika Beautiful educates the citizens of Opelika on the importance of preservation for a beautiful environment.
"One of our largest programs is the Clean Campus Program," Miller said. "Each of our schools recycles several items, and we help coordinate these programs."
Lee County has taken initiatives to promote recycling and create a better environment.
"We have 15 dump sites where the public takes their garbage that don't have door-to-door pickup in the county, and on those sites we have recycle bins for cardboard and paper," said Alecia Fullerton, recycling coordinator for Lee County. "It saves years on the landfill by reducing the amount of garbage that is dumped, and it saves the environment."
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