The Auburn Department of Environmental Services does far more than simply cleaning up the toilet paper from Toomer's Corner after a Tiger's win.
Overseeing a wide range of departments including recycling, solid waste, animal control and fleet services, is Timothy Woody, the director of environmental services for the city of Auburn. He and his staff have made major progress in the improvement of waste pollution in the city of Auburn.
"I don't think [waste pollution] is considered a major problem for the city," Woody said. who has been the director since 2004.
Curbside recycling programs and adding other items, such as scrap metals, to the list of recyclable goods have been major factors to the cleanliness of Auburn and the surrounding areas.
In 2009, the city of Auburn entered into the East Alabama Recycling Partnership with the University, Opelika and Lee County.
"We formed this group primarily to give us a better chance at having a county-wide recycling and waste-reduction effort," Woody said. "Everyone was out doing their own thing for their own communities, which people continue to do, but we thought we could do a better job together and looked at things from a comprehensive point of view."
Recyclable goods are one of the main focuses for the city and Woody has goals and future plans to make them a priority to both help the environment and benefit the community.
In Auburn, recyclable goods are sorted and then taken to facilities called MRF's, or material recovery facilities.
However, Auburn doesn't have these facilities. If someone wants to recycle, they personally have to separate the glass from the cardboard from the newspaper and so on. With a MRF being put in place, which is Woody's long-term goal, people in the community would be more encouraged to recycle.
"You'll have some folks that are conscientious and want to recycle and do the right thing," Woody said. "Some folks, it's not that they personally don't care, but people are busy and it's easier to not sort it out."
Woody believes many who do not currently recycle might do so with a MRF in place in Auburn.
"I'm thinking that it would self-enforce itself," Woody said.
Having an MRF would allow people to simply put all recyclables in one bin and not have to go through the tedious process of sorting the goods on an individual basis.
Solid waste is taken to a separate facility in Salem.
The landfill facility for Auburn's trash has been operational since November 1985. This landfill contains trash from 13 counties in Alabama as well as three contiguous counties in Georgia: Troupe, Muskogee and Harris.
The landfill is run by privately owned Waste Management; however, other companies such as Advanced Disposal also use the facility.
When the solid waste arrives, it is put through a simple process.
"[Waste] is pushed up, spread out and compacted," said Mike Malphrus, the district manager of the Salem Waste Disposal Facility. "Then, each day, [the waste] is covered in six inches of soil."
This facility sees all kinds of waste every day. The most common waste product the facility sees is household garbage.
Malphrus and his facility also try and help the environmental effort by extracting scrap metals from the solid waste to be reused.
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