Gregg Ridley
Howell Moss
Michael Hudson

Staff Photo by Ben Benton
Rocky Evans, left, and Jim Lee haul empty flooring boxes to the cardboard compactor at Bledsoe County's convenience center in the Lee Station community. Mr. Lee, owner of Lee's Floor Covering in Pikeville, Tenn., said his company recycles as much as possible.

Recycling in the Sequatchie Valley got a needed boost from more than $60,000 in grants to improve small programs in Bledsoe, Marion and Sequatchie counties.

Recycling programs don’t generate much revenue, but they give environmentally concerned residents a way to participate, said Sequatchie County Executive Michael Hudson.

“It’s mainly to provide a service to our county and to keep our community clean,” Mr. Hudson said.

Sequatchie County residents recycle a lot of cardboard, and they’ll use a new cardboard compactor at the John Griswold Recreational Complex as much as they do the existing one, he said.

Bledsoe County Mayor Gregg Ridley said his chunk of funding will pay for “roll-off” containers to hold recyclable plastics at all three convenience centers. The containers are made for easy hauling on a specially designed truck.

“We’re getting three, 40-yard bins for plastics,” Mr. Ridley said.

Marion County Mayor Howell Moss said his county’s new roll-off containers “give us the ability to do more household recycling.”

Recycling programs grow slowly because they rarely fund themselves, Mr. Moss said.

“It’s cheaper to put it in the landfill, but just because it’s cheaper doesn’t mean it’s the best thing to do,” he said. “We’ve not been offering any kind of recycling for households, and we’re going to try to do that now.”

The grants come from$417,000 in grant funds issued in October for 19 projects, according to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

The grant program “plays an important role in our state’s strategy to encourage recycling and to reduce the amount of solid waste that goes into landfills in Tennessee,” Gov. Phil Bredesen said in a news release.

Bledsoe’s centers were open and busy on Friday.

Harley Smith, who operates Bledsoe’s convenience center in the Lee Station community, said he tries to encourage people to recycle.

“It’s hard to get people to recycle sometimes, but I’m all for it,” Mr. Smith said as he tossed newspaper trimmings into a bin.

Young people focus more on recycling, but older folks are burying them in litter, Mr. Smith said.

Bledsoe resident William McDonald joked Friday that he holds the title “best recycler in the county.” Mr. McDonald hauls his trash about 20 miles one way to Mr. Smith’s center.

People should aim high in recycling, he said.

“I think we ought to try to recycle everything,” he said.

On Friday, Jim Lee and Rocky Evans were loading the cardboard compactor with boxes from a construction project. They and Mr. Smith hail each other by first names.

“We always bring boxes and stuff,” Mr. Lee said as he crammed all the cardboard he could into the compactor. “Anything we can recycle, we do.”