Have you seen that great big green trailer in the Wal-Mart parking lot?

Keep Decatur County Beautiful and Decatur County brought the newest recycle trailer in its fleet to Wal-Mart just before Thanksgiving. Bainbridge High School students participated in a “name the trailer” contest, which resulted in its chosen moniker, “Recyclinator.” The name conjures up the words “recycle” and “terminate”—the idea is to keep recyclables from wasting space in a landfill.

Recyclinator was the brainchild of Keep Decatur County Beautiful and came to fruition as the result of GEFA funding, Decatur County facilitation and matching funds, and local Wal-Mart’s sense of environmental stewardship. Fabricated by local Anderson Manufacturing and named by local students, this has truly been a community project. Even the signs on the trailer were made by local Quality Signs.

For many months, Keep Decatur County Beautiful board members had deliberated over the quandary of making recycling more convenient for citizens. We began to discuss the possibility of having a trailer that would be convenient for people to use at shopping and other venues as they went about accomplishing other regular tasks.

This also fits into the new economy, since people are more hesitant to make non-necessary trips in their car or truck. At the same time, the local Wal-Mart store under the leadership of store manager, Roy Oliver, and training/community coordinator, Sharon McClendon, had begun to seek opportunities to involve themselves in community and environmental issues to show personal and corporate stewardship. Wal-Mart was given first dibs on having Recyclinator at their store.

Recyclinator was a great success from the start and we look forward to the opportunity to work with you to achieve further success.

Please do not put trash or garbage into the recyclinator. That will be against local laws, but even worse, if trash builds up, we won’t be allowed to keep the trailer at such a convenient spot if we do not have help from citizens.

How people can help recycle

Recyclinator has capability to handle the following items:

• Plastic bottles No. 1 (soda, water, beverage)

• Plastic bottles No. 2 (milk, tea, juice containers, soap, detergent bottles)

• Cardboard (please break-down boxes flat and place in rear of trailer)

• Newspaper and inserts, telephone books

• Paper products, white and color paper, cards, folders, magazines, junk mail

• Aluminum cans

• We do not have the capability yet to recycle glass or metal

If you have questions or comments about the trailer or its use, please call Keep Decatur County Beautiful at 246-3611, or e-mail bdckab@surfsouth.com. We sincerely hope you will enjoy this convenience and the opportunity to contribute to its becoming the success it has the potential to be.