Sandy Springs has partnered with Keep North Fulton Beautiful to seek a $1.2 million federal grant to make improvements and expand programs at the city’s recycling center on Morgan Falls Road.
The Sandy Springs City Council voted during its meeting Tuesday to approve the submission of an Environmental Protection Agency Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling Grant application. Keep North Fulton Beautiful operates the recycling center.
Ryder Leary, Executive Director of Keep North Fulton Beautiful, said the center recycles plastics, cardboard, scrap metal, electronics, and glass. The grant would give the recycling center the ability to increase its capacity.
Leary said the proposed upgrades to the existing facility include resurfacing all paved areas and improving stormwater management, buying new containers, signage, a cover structure, and mechanical equipment, such as a compact loader and a pick-up truck.
The equipment would enable the recycling center to process materials faster, Leary said.
Leary said the second piece of the grant would enable them to get outside of the recycling center by purchasing a mobilization trailer to take to apartments that lack on-site recycling.
Assistant City Manager Kristin Smith said the city coupled the approximately $690,000 in recycling center improvements with the $542,000 mobilization trailer because it can reach low to moderate-income communities. She said the center is not within one of those U.S. Census tracts. Including the trailer makes the grant application more competitive.
The agenda presentation said the mobile recycling unit would have rotating onsite collection, focusing on multi-family complexes. A heavy-duty truck and two trailers would be purchased, with two part-time employees driving the truck and educating the public. After the grant period, the mobile recycling would continue at an at-cost fee to multifamily complexes.
