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10 MAY 04: BIN THERE, DONE THAT
A nice new friend has emerged down the street from Phenix City's Municipal Building - so I paid it a visit Sunday. No, don't get the wrong idea. It's next door to the Phenix City Animal Shelter....
Phenix City has given up curbside recycling, for a central location at 12th Street and 8th Avenue. It looked bright-blue and new Sunday afternoon - but that will change in a few months, as careless people start dumping unclean trash that doesn't belong there.
There are six bins at the Phenix City recycling center, for all sorts of products. You can drop off plastic bottles, glass bottles, aluminum and steel cans, newspapers and magazines. That last one will be important for guys about to get married....
SSSSHHHH - don't tell, but I drove across the river from Columbus to drop off plastic and steel cans at the Phenix City recycling center. It's a short trip from my apartment, no sign said I couldn't -- and the only witnesses at around noon on Sunday might have been a few dogs leaping up to the animal shelter window.
(Come to think of it, this is a nice convenient location for the animal shelter. If the staff runs out of food, hungry dogs can lick up unwashed steel cans of beef stew or chili.)
Yes, I'm aware of the Columbus curbside recycling program. But I'm VERY aware that in my neighborhood, it's "hit or miss." Many times I've left a blue bin full of items at the curb -- only to find it still full a couple of days later, made even heavier by passing rain.
The ugly little secret about the "Blue Bin" program is that it emphasizes Columbus homeowners. City crews have NO obligation to pick up recyclable materials at an apartment complex like mine, even though they pick up the trash. And you thought segregation in the South was dead....
So what have I done with my recyclable items for seven years? I've driven most of them to bins outside the Goodwill Industries building near Whitesville Road. The bad news is, that place doesn't accept steel cans. The good news is, you can examine other people's discarded magazines and see if there's something worth reading.
This new recycling center in Phenix City is much closer, in terms of driving time and saving gas. But there's still one pesky question - does it take ALL sorts of plastic? The Columbus program is picky, taking only certain kinds of bottles.-- and amazingly, it's not a matter of soda vs. liquor.
Most plastic items have recycling logos on them, with little numbers inside the logos. The Columbus recycling program only takes 1's and 2's, and NOT 5's and 6's. It's sort of like Keisha Swanier playing college basketball at Connecticut, while her high school teammates have to go to CVCC.
So I didn't cause any problems, I put all the plastic without a 1 or 2 in a grocery bag Sunday. Then I left it outside the "plastic bottle" bin -- which I guess makes me a lot like people who leave stray dogs next door at the animal shelter.
I should explain what I've done with leftover steel cans and plastic. When my travels take me to metro Atlanta, I've dropped them in recycling bins in my old hometown of College Park. That's another reason why I like this new center - because you can't recycle burned gasoline.
If I could make one suggestion to Phenix City officials, it would be to do what College Park does - and put recycling bins in several parts of town. College Park has them at all city parks. Residents of north Phenix City probably don't want to go south of 13th Street unless they're paying a relative's bail.
BLOG UPDATE: With the two-dollar barrier busted, a few Columbus gas stations now seem to be in a race for the highest fuel price. I found a BP station on Cusseta Road Sunday with premium unleaded at $2.04. It's perfect for would-be rap stars who want to flaunt their money in front of their girlfriends.
The lowest price for regular unleaded I've seen is at a usual spot. The Dolly Madison bread store on Victory Store sells gas for $1.74 - and amazingly, you might get two loaves of whole wheat bread for the same price.
© 2003-04 Richard Burkard, All Rights Reserved.