An old ambulance flies the Bicentennial American flag amidst scrap metal at the Ashville Recycling center off Highway 11.

While Americans are becoming increasingly aware of our impact on the environment, a growing number of ways to limit personal waste are being implemented by area residents.

The traditional means of recycling is giving used goods back to be re-used and there are many places and ways that St. Clair County residents can recycle various items.

Cans, for instance, may be dropped off to be recycled at numerous locations throughout the county. Many organizations such as the St. Clair Animal Shelter and Lakeside Hospice have drop-off locations where residents can donate their cans and the money collected when those organizations sell them goes directly to their causes.

Batteries are used in everyday life in items such as cell phones, laptops and children’s toys. But they can pose an environmental risk if they are not disposed of properly.

That is because batteries are comprised of heavy metals and other elements that make things “portable.” Some of those toxic heavy metals include nickel cadmium, alkaline, mercury, nickel metal hydride and lead acid. It is those elements that can threaten the environment if not properly discarded.

Companies aware of these problems have taken steps to allow people to safely discard their batteries so not to pollute lakes, streams or landfills.

Car batteries—which contain lead—can be taken to local automotive stores, such as Auto Zone or Advanced Auto parts. There is no charge for recycling, though a price is fixed in for disposal of an old battery if someone buys a new car battery. In the United States, around 97% of lead from used batteries is reclaimed for recycling. The cores from old car batteries are also re-used and put into new ones.

Used oil and transmission fluid can also be recycled by taking it to auto parts stores or Wal-Mart to be put into receptacles that are later emptied for recycling.

Other auto parts are recycled and refurbished by large car parts stores. Items such as starters, alternators, CV joints, rack and pinions, power boosters, brake calipers are collected and then taken to recycling and refurbishing shops.

Because of their high replacement factor, cell phones represent a small, but growing problem, since they eventually end up in landfills and can leak hazardous chemicals.

Cell phones and their accessories contain a hazardous substance known as Persistent, Bioaccumulative and Toxic Chemicals (PBTs). Included in the list of PBTs are metals that can remain in the environment for a long time and have adverse effects on people’s health. Some of the chemicals have been known to cause damage to the nervous system, reproductive and development problems and cancer and have other genetic impacts.

But, St. Clair residents can keep those pollutants from piling up in local landfills by dropping off their old cell phones and chargers at locations such as Southern Cellular in Pell City. The phones are collected and then taken to cell phone-recycling centers in the area. Many other cell phone retailers offer similar programs.

Other everyday items, like laptop computers or children’s toys, are increasingly using batteries that can leak hazardous materials into ground water or soil.

Radio Shack offers a recycling program for household- and everyday-use batteries. Nickel metal hydride or nickel cadmium batteries, button, cell or cordless phone batteries or any other rechargeable battery as well as lithium can be recycled at no charge. Those batteries are put in prepaid envelopes and then mailed to a recycling company.

One often-hazardous item that has been recycled for decades is tires. Jay Scot Enterprises recycle tires that are dropped off at various locations throughout the county. The company has a contract with corporate stores that sell certain brands of tires across Alabama and Georgia. “We pick anywhere up form 1,500 to 3,000 tires a day,” said Shawn Hart of Jay Scott Enterprises.

Hart noted that several different fates may await a recycled tire. A recycled tire can be re-used after going through an inspection; melted down while the steel radial is extracted and recycled; sold to Alabama Power in order to be used as fuel since a tire burns hotter than coal; or chopped up and used as a playground filler.

Liberty Recycling of Atlanta turns used tires into mulch. The company has a contract with Home Depot and Lowe’s to exclusively provide tire mulch to those

in the northern part of the county. Ashville Recycling has been taking in all sorts of metal goods for over a year. Phillip Gargus founded the company. “We accept most anything metal,” Gargus said. “We buy automobiles, big trucks; we actually take the big trucks with tires on them and haul the tires to B and B tire landfill. All of the metal goes to the foundries in Birmingham. Our cans are sold locally. And the sheet aluminum is melted down and then made into car parts and cast aluminum.”

The copper collected at Ashville Recycling is recycled into household copper or shipped overseas. The tires collected are sent to Birmingham while the steel is stripped out of them and used by ACIPCO.

Gargus has eight full-time employees that work at the massive scrap yard just off Highway 11 in Ashville. “It’s really done exceptionally well,” Gargus said. “It’s done better than I expected. Putting a place for recycling our in a rural area is rare. Usually you’d want to put it close to big business and corporation. But it’s really surprised me with the volume that we’re doing.”

A non-traditional means of “recycling” that has started recently is giving away items that might normally find their way to an auction site like EBay.

“Free-cycling” or free recycling gives people the option of giving away usable, but unneeded items to others instead of disposing of them in a landfill.

Anything from bookshelves to yard equipment and everything in between can be found on free-cyling websites like www.freecycle.org.