Recycling expands

Port Aransas city government recently revamped and expanded its recycling program, and officials are looking at making the program even bigger.

Most recently, the city council voted unanimously on Thursday, Feb. 16, to have city staff look into the possibility of setting up recycling bins on the beach.

The council made the vote at the behest of Councilman Steve Lanoux.

“We have an opportunity to do a service not only for our beach but for our community,” Lanoux said.

If recycling containers are placed in the sand, beachgoers who drink from aluminum cans and plastic bottles would have a convenient place to put debris where it would later be recycled. Right now, only regular trash barrels and a few dumpsters are on the beach.

City staff was looking into the beach recycling question even before the council conducted the vote, according to Deputy City Manager Dave Parsons.

The city is looking into whether the best recycling move would be to set up containers along the beach or put larger bins on beach access roads, Parsons said. Staff also is exploring costs and how much employee time would have to go into maintaining beach recycling containers.

In a related development, the city about seven weeks ago established a recycling drop-off site at city hall. A metal container that’s about six feet square was set up in a city hall parking lot.

The bin was put there partly to help serve Port Aransas visitors who may not have access to curbside recycling bins where they stay.

The city hall bin has become so popular that the city added a second one. Both containers are six feet high, six feet wide and six feet long. Debris made of aluminum, paper, cardboard and plastic is accepted and may be mixed together in both bins.

The city recently revamped the recycling station at the citizens’ collection station, also known as the city dump.

Previously, recyclables were held in several large cardboard boxes under a shelter.

“Those boxes would get all wet and nasty, so we did away with those, and now we have three big, green, nice toters on a concrete pad,” Parsons said. The bins are made of metal, he said.

Questions? Comments? Contact Dan Parker at (361) 749- 5131 or dan@portasouthjetty.com.