Union County

Transfer Station and Recycling Information

Union County's Transfer Sation is operated by Appalacian Waste Systems and located at 1226 Deep South Farms Road in Blairsville, Georgia. Hours of operation are 7:00 am until 4:00 pm Monday through Friday and 7:00 am until 12:00 pm on Saturday.
Beginning August 13, 2007 the tipping fee is $49.00 per ton. The per bag price is $.75 for 30 gallons and under and $1.00 for bags over 30gallons. This is the first price increase since AWS took over the transfer Station nearly 6 years ago. This price increase is due to the increase in the price of fuel, disposal costs and inusrance. They regret the need to impose this increase but due to the higher cost of running the operation, they have no choice.

Recycling is available at the site. Materials taken are corrugated cardboard, mixed paper, #1 and #2 plastics (lids removed and rinsed out, please) For more information please call 706-439-6102 or email komb@alltel.net
During 2006 the citizens of Union County have recycled over 691,446 pounds of materials. This has been a major increase over 2005 and in great part is due to the many volunteers who man the new neighborhood recycling program stations. Thanks to all of the citizens who have taken advantage of this new program and have recycled materials that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill!

THE GLASS ISSUE

We wanted to take a moment to address the issue of glass recycling.

As many of you may know, we are unable to accept glass for recycling. This is due to several reasons but the biggest of these is the fact that we are no longer able to market glass.

Recycling means that a commodity is removed from the waste stream, remanufactured into a new product and then resold. This is also known as “Closing the Loop”. If we separated glass but are unable to sell it, we are not recycling, we are merely storing it.

At the present time, due to the cost of transportation, the glass recyclers are requiring that we provide them with full semi-trailer loads of each individual color of glass in order to accept our materials. This is unfortunate as we do not have the space to house three such trailers at our county’s facility. Based on the small amounts generated, it would take several years to fill one trailer.

Another problem is that if even one colored bottle gets broken into a different colored batch of glass, the entire load must be disposed of as the recycler will not accept the trailer into their facility. This is a problem as we cannot allocate a full-time person to man the glass trailers to ensure the materials do not become contaminated.

There is some “good” news however. Glass is a renewable resource, meaning that it is made of sand and heat and both are readily available. Glass is an inert material that does not rust, rot or decompose in any way. If glass is landfilled it does not impact the earth in any negative fashion.

As the closest facility is located south of the Atlanta Airport, another factor that needs to be taken into considerations is the fuel, oil, rubber tire dust and air emissions created by transporting materials almost 200 miles to take a trailer to the glass recycler.

Please know that we are very aware of the interest of our citizens in recycling glass. Based on the information above, currently it is not possible for us to do so at this time. Should the fuel prices decline, making our glass of more interest to the recycling industry, we will revisit this issue.

Thank you for your continued patronage of our recycling centers and if we can be of further service please call Leslie George at 706-894-2785 or Cindy Reed at 706-677-2344

UNION COUNTY NOW OFFERS NEIGHBORHOOD RECYCLING!
Beginning June 28, 2006, every Wednesday from 8am until 12pm at the following Fire Station/Voting Precinct:
Station 2 - Jones Creek Precinct
Station 3 - Owltown Precinct
Station 4 - Ivy Log Precinct (around behind fire station)
Station 5 - Suches Precinct
Station 6 - Pat Colwell Precinct
Station 8 - Gumlog Precinct
Station 9 - Coosa Precinct
Station 12 - Choestoe Precinct
Citizens can recycle newspaper, office paper, magazines, cereal boxes (basically, if you can tear it, we can take it) aluminum cans and #s 1 & 2 plastic bottles with screw on type lid openings. Please rinse and crush all plastic and aluminum cans.
For more information please call Peggy at 706-439-6000

If you would like to volunteer to help with the Great American Clean-up on April 28, 2007 please fill out the information below and we will get in contact with you with information regarding this event. We look forward to hearing from you!
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UNION COUNTY RECYCLING TOTALS CONTINUE TO MOUNT!
In 2007 Union County residents recycled a total of�703,160 pounds of materials.�That is an increase of 117,140 over 2006�and over�351.5 tons of materials that might otherwise have gone into a landfill!

� Not only that but the newest addition to the�County's recycling program, the Neighborhood Recycling Program, did not come into existance until May of 2006.� We expect to see the numbers continue to increase as more and more citizens take advantage of the Neighborhood Program.� Congratulations to�Union County for a quality, affordable recycling program!!

UNION COUNTY TAKES ON THE GOVERNOR'S "CLEAN COMMUNITY CHALLENGE"

Thank you for taking the time to complete the Governor's Litter Awareness Survey"� Simply click on the link below�to share your ideas on litter.�

CLICK ON THIS LINK TO BEGIN THE LITTER AWARENESS SURVEY

NORTH GEORGIA RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY

1,986,141 POUNDS OF MATERIALS RECYCLED IN 2007