Recycling efforts are not wasted
BY HANNAH BUNNING Gulf Breeze News Scott@gulfbreezenews.com

Santa Rosa County Recycle centers are located across from Oriole Beach Rd. on Hwy. 98 and at Tiger Point Rec Park.

According to the Environmental Protect Agency's web site, over the past 15 years recycling efforts across the nation have almost doubled. Today, 32.5 percent of waste is recycled throughout the U.S.

A few weeks ago several concerned residents of Gulf Breeze began calling and sending emails to Gulf Breeze News expressing concern that the materials they were recycling were being taken to landfills and dumped there.

Jenni Koontz, a resident of Santa Rosa County, has been recycling since 1995. She was one of the first to express her concerns over the recycling efforts in our area.

"We've lived in big cities where it was required, so we got used to doing it," Koontz said. "Someone in Pace told me I was wasting my time because the county couldn't afford to recycle and was just taking our materials to a dump. It infuriated me."

Koontz, like other concerned residents, wanted to get to the bottom of her suspicions.

"I was hoping that the county would get into handing out recycling bins to people's homes. I'd like to see every household involved. I'd love to see it started in the neighborhood," Koontz said.

As it turns out the efforts of Koontz and her fellow recycling residents are not going to waste.

"The materials get taken to a recycling facility located on a landfill in Milton that is owned by the county where the recycled goods are sorted, bailed and shipped to mills on pick-up trucks," Floyd Rentz, an employee of the Santa Rosa County Recycling Department, said.

The Santa Rosa County Recycling Department operates a recycling station on U.S. Highway 98 across from Barnhill's where recycled materials are dropped off.

Rentz said that the materials dropped off at the sub-station are picked up three days a week and taken to a recycling facility at Central Landfill in Milton to be sorted. Central Landfill is owned and operated by Santa Rosa County.

"We pick up cardboard, paper, junk mail, aluminum cans, plastic drinking bottles and milk jugs," Rentz said.

There are plenty of opportunities to recycle in Okaloosa County as well.

Rory Cassedy, the governmental affairs manager for Waste Management in north Florida, offered a few tips on recycling in Okaloosa County.

"Recycling is included in the Waste Management bill to the residents," Cassedy said. "If you don't want to participate in recycling you don't have to, but it's encouraged since you're paying for it anyway."

Waste Management also has collecting sites in Santa Rosa County where residents can take cardboard materials they wish to recycle.

Materials picked up by Waste Management in Santa Rosa County are taken to a processing factory, also located within the county, where they are sorted.

Residents of Santa Rosa County and Okaloosa County are encouraged to take the time to recycle the appropriate materials.

"I don't think a lot of people understand what can be recycled," Koontz said. "I just wish the recycling company would go household to household and get the entire neighborhood involved in the process."

It is Kootnz's desire that knowledge about recycling be taught at a school level.

"If the kids are learning about it at school then we might as well do it at home," she said.

For more information on recycling, contact the Santa Rosa County Recycling Department at (850) 939-1512. For information regarding recycling in Okaloosa County contact Rory Cassedy at 850-865-8482.