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Mississippi's Recycling Industry

Posted: 9:01 PM Apr 11, 2012
Reporter: Mike McDaniel

Mississippi's recycling industry is turning into an economic powerhouse and industry leaders say the state needs to better position itself to become a national leader.

They may look like smashed aluminum cans, but if you look closer, recycling in Mississippi is big business.

"It's about creating a different shade of green and that's the one on the dollar bill," according to Will Sagar with the Southeast Recycling Development Council.

Sagar says the state is seeing documented job growth in the green industry despite economic hardships. That growth he says is helping push economic development.

"Recycling is more than just an environmental movement," he adds.

Currently, there are 250 recycling businesses across Mississippi. Nine of them are manufacturing facilities. There are an estimated 7,000 jobs associated with recycling and Poncho James is in the middle of it. He is the president of the Mississippi Recycling Coalition and Vice President of a recycling center in Sumrall.

"The dollar signs are amazing," James says. "I think my company we were doing 15, 16 million dollars a year. We're just a small part of this."

James says technology is helping to increase the industry's impact, but it comes down to getting everyone on the same page.

"Making recycling easy is the key," he points out.

That is the hard part says Mark Williams with the Recycling Coalition, especially with no state wide system for collection.

"We have large rural areas of the state," Williams says. "The success of recycling is trying to build the volume of recyclables that are collected and to put together a quality product."

That is the message being brought to lawmakers. With much of corporate America moving towards sustainability and recycled goods, Williams says Mississippi already has a recycling foundation and it is time to build on it and benefit from it.

"This is an industry that we need to recruit like any other industry to Mississippi," he believes.

On a state level, according to calculations from the recycling council, if every Mississippian recycled one more aluminum can per week for a year, the state would generate more than a million dollars in revenue.