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Williamson Mayor Steve Fry is dedicated to the city’s new recycling program. On the first pick-up day, January 26, he drove the streets of Williamson searching for bins filled with recycling while on the phone with Dependable Waste. If he saw a trash can filled with recyclables, he reached in and pulled them out to throw into the truck. “I felt like a dumpster diver,” said Fry with a laugh.
February 23 marked the second recycling pick-up day for the city of Williamson. Fry reported that roughly 25-30 homes participated in both the first and second recycling pick-up days. Though there wasn’t any increase in participation, Fry saw hope for increased response since some homes that didn’t put out recycling on the first day did on the second time around.
Fry began the recycling program when he realized that Dependable Waste Service, Inc., who provides Williamson’s waste collection services, offered recycling pick-up for no extra charge.
Williamson’s recycling program is very similar to the one Griffin implemented four years ago. It’s a single-sort program with curbside pick-up. This means no sorting is necessary – plastics, cardboard, glass, newspapers, magazines, telephone books and aluminum cans can all be thrown in a bin together and placed by the road for Dependable Waste to pick up every fourth Wednesday of the month.
As of right now, however, the similarities stop there. Fry has no plans to make recycling mandatory, as Griffin did. In order to make the program necessary, Williamson would have to provide a recycling bin for each Williamson household. At approximately $50 per bin and 200 households, this would put a $10,000 strain on a budget that couldn’t handle it.
As of right now, Williamson residents can use any type of receptacle they have available to place their recyclables by the road. Fry is brainstorming ideas for providing receptacles at a lower cost. One idea is the city and residents splitting the cost of the bins, with residents opting to add $1 to their water bill to help pay for a bin, if they choose to participate.
“We’re still scratching our heads to find the most cost-efficient way to make this work,” said Fry. He gives much credit to the owners at Dependable Waste, who are coming back through Williamson after their regular Senoia trash route just to pick up the city’s recycling.
Williamson’s recycling waste gets sent through Griffin and then up to Pratt Recycling in Atlanta. Though Williamson isn’t making any revenue from the recycling, it does cut down on the amount of waste sent to the landfills. Cities pay for every ton of waste sent to landfills, so it lowers the cost associated with that.
Fry estimates that his household recycled 200 pounds of waste last month. Over the last two months, he estimates Williamson residents recycled 1200-1500 pounds of waste. “People don’t realize how much of their trash is recyclable,” said Fry. “About 60 percent of the waste from your home is recyclable,” he said.
As of right now, recycling pick-up is scheduled for every fourth Wednesday. Pick-up frequency may increase as participation rises.
The GRIP 
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