editorial3@thomastontimes.com

The Georgia SWANA (Solid Waste Association of North America) awards for 2008 were announced recently, naming Thomastonian Kevin Barkley as the 2007 Solid Waste Professional in the Public Sector.

Barkley has been employed for over 15 years as Assistant Director of Solid Waste for the City of Griffin.

SWANA stated, “Kevin consistently shows his dedication and professionalism on a daily basis.

“Kevin’s greatest accomplishment to date is the very successful city-wide implementation of the mandatory recycling program. More than 8,500 households had to be phased in for recycling pickup.

Kevin has been a member of the Georgia Chapter of SWANA since 1993.”

The Georgia Chapter of the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) serves over 250 members as a leading professional association for networking, training, and development in the solid waste field.

Barkley will pick up the award this week at Sea Palms Golf Resort.

Thomaston Greensun Recycling founder and owner Patti Robinson said, “We are happy to have a top award winning recycling guru leading our Thomaston Recycling efforts!”

Additionally, the City of Griffin's Solid Waste Department was named second place for the Georgia SWANA Outstanding Recycling Program for 2008 and won Outstanding Collection System.

The first and only recycling program of its kind in Georgia, the City of Griffin has a “mandatory” program for city residential customers and commercial customers who utilize City garbage containers.

Griffin purchased and distributed 7,500, 35-gallon roll cart containers to be used for storing recyclable for pickup to each Griffin single-family residence and every business using garbage containers issued by the city.

Affixed to the top of each of these containers is a guide telling what recyclable may be placed in the carts.

The “single sort recycling” program makes it easier for citizens to participate. Under the Griffin recycling program, Solid Waste customers place recycling container son the street curb next to garbage container on collection days.

Griffin held several open houses, ran articles and inserted flyers in the local newspaper announcing the new program.

Revenues from the sale of the recyclable collected help to offset the additional cost to the City.

Educating is a continuous and important aspect of the Griffin’s program.

The City of Griffin collects waste once a week from more than 7,500 single-family households, 2,500 multi-family households, 1,500 commercial customers, and 50 industrial customers.

An additional 4,000 tons per year of yard trimmings is collected using vacuum trucks.

Forty employees work to collect 27,500 tons of waste and 1,200 tons of single-stream recyclable per year.

The City of Griffin continues to be the area leader waste collections, obtaining approximately 90 percent of all commercial contracts.

Griffin has made offers to Thomaston to work with this City in picking up recyclable items should Thomaston decide to “go green”.

Please visit: greensunrecycling.com for more information on local recycling - Go Green - opportunities.