City Council Approves new recycling center in Jackson

12/06/22

JACKSON, TENN (WNBJ)-

The city of Jackson has never had a recycling center- today, city leaders voted to fund one.

For years the city has relied on drop-off locations for recycling but the problem is many people drop off contaminated items or even just trash that forces the city to throw them away instead of being able to recycle them.

Now the city of Jackson is looking to fix the problem by creating a $65,778 Recycling Convenience Center.

“This is a free drop-off site for those items. The metals, cardboard, paper, plastics, one and two. So residents can come to that site, and drop off their items if they need help with any type of we're not going to be sorting them for them. But if they need help with that, they have any questions about recycling, how they're sorting some feedback," said Robin Chance, the city's Recycling Coordinator.

Mayor Scott Conger said, “This recycling center, I think the important thing about it is it will be manned because what we see in our convenience centers now is people dumping trash, people cross contaminating.”

The center will be on Conalco drive by the city's public works building.

The city calls the recycling center a temporary solution for now, the ultimate goal is to have curb-side recycling in Jackson.

“We're going to be producing lesson plans surrounding recycling, educating the community on correct recycling. And so that's going to help us move into curbside in the next few years pretty efficiently and effectively," Chance said.

Chance believes that education is needed to convince people why recycling is so important, “Recycling is very intimidating. And so we want to bring that intimidation out of the picture. And so this will help us put everybody in the right light to make curbside more successful. You're going to be seeing a lot of different events and marketing coming through about recycling.”

Education is already available at recycling.jacksontn.gov

The city hopes to have the recycling center open by early spring 2023,