FORT BENNING, Ga. - Fort Benning's recycling center has cranked up again in Harmony Church as post environmental officials plan for a permanent facility to be built nearby in three years.
A new Material Recycling Facility - which opened last month on Jamestown Road, just south of 1st Division Road - is recycling paper, cardboard, aluminum cans, plastic, wood, wood pallets and glass. The installation's program ceased operations in August after the old recycling center on Cusseta Road was torn down. That spot was cleared for a new access control point to handle the anticipated swell in traffic when the U.S. Army Armor School arrives from Fort Knox, Ky.
Structural steel from the old MRF was reused at the newer facility, which is merely a stopgap collection point for the post until a larger recycling center goes up about a half-mile away sometime in 2012, said Ellis Leeder, the air, noise and MRF manager for the Directorate of Public Works' Environmental Management Division. A site survey is under way for the permanent facility.
Leeder said Fort Benning is making a big push to recycle more and send less into area landfills.
"We are adding to our future list of recycling materials by what we see in our dumpsters, and brainstorming ideas to reduce weight as well as bulk items going to the landfills via the dumpsters," he said. "We're looking at everything being thrown away and asking, 'How can we recycle that'' We're doing anything we can to keep from going to the landfill."
Unlike the old MRF, the recycling center at Jamestown Road accepts wood and wood pallets, which reduces weight at post dumpsters. The facility collects containers of all sizes and may begin recycling foam because of the massive amounts being thrown away, he said.
All Fort Benning personnel are encouraged to recycle and the new facility should make that effort easier, said Tannis Danley, an environmental compliance analyst contractor for DPW's Environmental Protection Management Branch.
Recycling trailer locations around Main Post include the parking lot on the west end of Soldiers' Plaza, the old museum on Baltzell Avenue, the parking lot behind Gowdy Field and the vehicle registration building parking lot near the Benning Road Gate. The trailers have bins labeled for glass, plastic, paper, cardboard and aluminum cans.
Following simple sorting, delivery and pickup rules will keep recycling areas clean and maximize bin capacity, said Dorinda Morpeth, Fort Benning's solid waste program manager.
"Participants can help the recycling effort by sorting materials according to the bin labels," she said. "It will also help on the other end and allow us to have a successful operation at the new facility."
When the recycling trailers were returned Nov. 16 following the program's late-summer hiatus, post residents and employees certainly noticed, Leeder said.
"The people of Fort Benning just swamped us with recyclables as they were saving them anyway with the news we stopped picking them up," he said. "For a whole week, all we did was try to empty them, put them back and they would be full again in two days."
Danley said it's important for everybody to play a role in recycling.
"Every piece of plastic, paper, cardboard, can and bottle that goes to the recycling center is one less piece that enters the landfill," she said. "By reducing, reusing or recycling, we as a community can reduce our carbon footprint and mitigate adverse effects on our environment."
The MRF is open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Post residents should bring bulk items and large material quantities directly to the recycle center or call for larger pickups.
Officials said the facility will collect Christmas trees this year for Fort Benning's DPW-EMD conservation branch, which plans to use them in local ponds to improve fish habitat. Curb pickup dates are Dec. 30 and Jan. 6, or residents may bring their trees to the MRF from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays between Dec. 28 and Jan. 8.
For more information about post recycling needs, send an e-mail to ellis.leeder@us.army.mil or call 706-545-7576/5337.
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