FOLEY – Recycling should become less expensive for Foley taxpayers and more efficient for the city in upcoming months when a new Baldwin County facility opens.
With a response rate of 65%, recycling is already more popular among Foley residents than in many other Alabama communities.
The opening of Baldwin County’s new materials recovery facility, known as an MRF, will cut costs by providing a recycling site at Baldwin County’s Magnolia Landfill. Foley and other local cities must now take materials to Florida for processing.
Mayor Ralph Hellmich said Foley is ready to use the new county facility. “We’re thrilled to death when they get this thing open,” he said.
The mayor said Foley residents recycle material at a higher rate than some other communities.
Hellmich said Foley also distributes collection cans for all recyclable materials. The city has been distributing the blue, wheeled containers in new subdivisions across the city as residents move into the houses.
The Foley containers are the same size as standard garbage cans and can be collected using the systems on trucks. The cans can also be rolled to the street unlike smaller bins that are carried.
Truck crews load the contents of the smaller bins onto the truck by hand.
The Foley City Council recently approved extending the city’s current recycling contract with the Emerald Coast Utility Authority in Escambia County, Florida.
The contract can be ended with 30-days notice, Darrell Russell, Foley Public Works director, told council members. The agreement will allow Foley to continue to recycle materials until the Baldwin County facility opens around the beginning of 2025.
Mike Thompson, Foley city administrator, said the move will reduce fuel costs and the time needed for vehicles and crews to transport the material.
“The location is important, because that’s going to save us on both labor and fuel for the truck,” Thompson said. “Our trucks won’t be going nearly as far.”
The Baldwin County facility will process the same materials now collected in Foley. The city recycles cardboard, paper, plastic and aluminum cans.
The new recycling center will not take glass. Foley also does not collect glass for recycling. Hellmich said the local recycling centers send materials to processing facilities. No processing facilities in the region take glass for recycling.