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Earth Day emphasizes importance of recycling

How are counties here in Central Georgia handling the increase in cardboard boxes due to spikes in online shopping?

Viewer Mike Callaway sent us an email asking how counties here in Central Georgia are handling the increase in cardboard boxes due to spikes in online shopping. Macon-Bibb County Solid Waste has the rundown on recycling in your neighborhood.

Bins get rolled out and dumped into recycling trucks every other week in Macon-Bibb County.

David Wimbush works on the truck for Macon-Bibb Solid Waste and knows this process like the back of his hand.

"I've been here approximately 26 years and I enjoy my job," Wimbush said.

He says it's different now than when he started over two decades ago.

"Basically we get more cardboard boxes and cans than usual," Wimbush explained.

Solid waste director Kevin Barkley says some boxes carry a familiar tag.

"A few of the Amazon boxes, you know, it's got their logo on it."

The boxes can end up in a landfill to decompose, or be reused if recycled in one of the Macon-Bibb bins.

"We've placed out over 11,000 blue containers for the residents to recycle every other week," Barkley said.

The bins are very easy to get your hands on and contribute to going green.

"If people want a recycling container, people can go to SeeClickFix and order one, or call our office at (478) 751-9296 .

Barkley calls the recycling program important, but says knowing the danger of the packaging inside your order, too.

"Plastics and styrofoams will last for hundreds of years. The rate of decomposition on those is very, very slow," Berkley said.

Unlike the boxes themselves, which are organic and decompose faster, but why throw them away when they can be reused?

Many here in Central Georgia are doing just that.

"We are collecting over 3,000 tons a year from the residents," Barkley said.

This can help keep the recycling program strong and the Earth healthy.

Another incentive for recycling -- according to the Georgia Recycling Coalition, 1/3 of all plastic beverage containers, and 8% of paper used in the US is recycled right here in Georgia. This provides the state with 23,000 jobs.

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