Foley, Ala. – (OBA) – Each weekday, trucks from the Foley Public Works Department travel across the city. These trucks stop at more than 6,000 locations to collect recycling. Homes and businesses all over Foley are part of the program. The service helps keep the community clean and environmentally friendly.

According to Darrel Russell, Foley’s public works director, just two employees manage the entire operation. They use automated trucks to lift and empty the blue recycling containers into the vehicles.

“They go in. They just reach it out and pick it up, and they've got it,” Russell said.

The automated system allows the entire city to be covered by two employees each week.

“It's a set route, Monday through Friday,” Russell said. “Each driver splits the route They go down every road, just like a garbage truck, except they just pick up the blue can.”

Some days are busier than others.

“Tuesday and Fridays are the heaviest,” Russell said. “Those are the routes where growth has occurred, but we’re not going to change the routes because that’s what people are used to.”

At times, residents will place items in the cans that are not on the list of materials that are acceptable for recycling.

The city recycles cardboard, paper, aluminum and steel cans and plastic. Some materials that the city cannot accept include glass, foam containers and yard wastes.

“The biggest contamination that we do have is grass clippings,” Russell said. “I guess they think we're going to compost that stuff, but we can’t.”

Most Foley residents, however, are good about what they put out in the blue cans. Shipments from Foley to the Baldwin County Materials Recovery Facility have a much lower rate of unacceptable materials than most cities or other agencies.

“So far, our contamination rate has been 10% or less, which is great,” Russell said. “I was just told this morning by a driver, a recycle driver, that the people in the plant love it when we come because it's not as much work. It's clean.”

Recycling is not only better for the environment, extending the life of the local landfill by keeping tons of material from being dumped there, it also saves money. Fees at the new MRF are lower than those charged to Foley at other recycling facilities. The MRF, located near the county’s Magnolia Landfill, is also closer than recycling centers in Florida, reducing transportation costs and time.

About 60% of Foley residents currently participate in the recycling program.

In addition to the two recycling trucks, Foley also operates a fleet of other collection trucks that pick up material each week.

“We run five residential garbage trucks, four commercial garbage trucks and four limb trucks,” Russell said. “We're fixing to add on to that one and one drivers, because the routes are getting so heavy.”

Overall, Foley collects garbage and yard wastes from about 11,000 households in the city.

Public Works crews perform a wide variety of other duties around Foley. 

Crews are out placing city banners on light poles, installing signs, fixing potholes, building roads, trimming trees, mowing grass along city rights of way and constructing sidewalks. In addition to maintaining the department’s vehicles, Public Works employees also maintain all of Foley’s approximately 400 vehicles and maintain the fuel inventory for the fleet.

“Sanitation is one of the things that people concentrate on,” he said. “That’s one of the big three, police, fire and sanitation, but we do a lot all over the city.”