By Blake Deshazo

The Selma Times-Journal

The mayor and city council members are racing the clock to finalize a plan to take over the city’s recycling program. The current contractor, Holley True Value Recycling, will stop handling the city’s recycling program on January 1.

“Mr. Holley has decided to expand his other business ventures and is getting out of the recycling business,” said councilwoman Susan Keith. “The city is going to take the opportunity to expand the recycling program.”

Councilwoman Keith held a meeting at city hall Tuesday to discuss plans on taking over the program.

Keith believes there are several benefits in the city running its own program.

“We will be able to provide a better service, additional personnel and just provide more regular pickups,” Keith said. “The city will be a lot cleaner and the air will be cleaner. Selma is such a beautiful city, and it is just a shame for it to not reflect the beauty and cleanliness that should go along with a city like Selma.”

Keith said the city could also benefit financially from running its own recycling program.

“Initially it will probably be about a break-even premise, but we hope to make a little bit of money perhaps on the goods that we would sell,” Keith said. “We will save on landfill space and tipping fees from the transfer station, so there will be a cost savings as well as cost procurement of goods that we sell of recyclables.”

Before the city can run its own program council members must decide on a location. Director of planning and development James Benderson said there are a few different spots in mind, but they must meet certain requirements.

“The program requires enough space for you to be able to bring in the recyclable bins and drop them off two or three at a time,” Benderson said. “We also need a bailer and a forklift to be able to stack up the bails of recycled material.”

If the city’s plan to take over the program falls through there are other options available Benderson said.

“We’re considering privatizing it to who may be interested in that, but that is the last resort,” he said. “Ideally, we’d like to be able to get it done with some of the staff that we already have to minimize the cost to the city.”

Benderson said their main goal is to reach a final decision before Jan. 1 so there is no delay or stoppage in services for the community.

“We want to make sure that it is a smooth transition so we don’t disappoint any of our residents,” he said. “We want to make sure that when they go to drop off their recyclable materials that there is a bin there for them to put it there. We can’t just abandon the program. The community loves it. They’re using the bins, and we’ve got more bins coming in a week.”

Councilwoman Keith said the city wants to make a decision soon so they can be ready to take over at the start of the year.