HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — With Earth Day just a day away, News 19 spoke with various groups to discuss how they are working to help the environment.
RANA is a division of the Solid Waste Disposal Authority of the City of Huntsville. Since its implementation on Aug. 1, 2019, RANA has been servicing the people of North Alabama for nearly five years.
“We do it because it’s the right thing for the environment, and we want to encourage people to recycle and not to throw away as much as they do,” Program Director Doc Holladay said.
According to Holladay, before RANA, there was a recycling program that began in the early 1990s. That program started with only serving the City of Huntsville, but eventually grew to serve the City of Madison and the more heavily populated areas of Madison County.
However, unlike RANA, the old program did not serve the entirety of Madison County. Additionally, multiple internal issues within the old program delayed bins from being picked up and processed.
These problems eventually led to the creation of RANA, with about 90,000 people signed up for the program. The recycling organization serves single-family homes within the Madison County boundary, as well as Huntsville and Madison residents who live in Limestone County at no cost.
Knowing what you can or can’t recycle can be tricky. For example, although a plastic bottle and a coffee container can be made from the same type of plastic, the way they are made can prevent them from being recycled together.
“You might look and they may have the same number on the bottle, but they don’t have all the same chemical composition or polymers in there, and that’s what makes it difficult,” Holladay said. “You can only make a new bottle out of an old bottle, and part of that has to do with the way they are made.”
Since plastic bottles are in higher demand, this is what most recycling facilities focus on.
A materials recovery facility (MRF) is a waste sorting and recycling plant that receives and processes recyclable materials for manufacturers. The RANA facility is not an MRF, so they send the materials they receive to different facilities, such as the MRF in Chattanooga, to process.
RANA can accept materials such as:
- Steel and aluminum cans
- Flattened cardboard
- Paper
- Cartons
- #1 and #2, narrow-neck plastic bottles
RANA recommends that your recyclables be broken down and crushed to fit loosely in the cart, rather than bagging them. The organization also recommends that your recyclables be cleaned before being put in the cart.
RANA cannot accept materials such as:
- Plastic wrap
- Plastic bags
- Aerosol cans
- Glass
- Pizza boxes
- Styrofoam
- Tanglers
- Batteries
- Motor oil
Recycling bins are picked up once a month. You can see the 2025 schedule below:
Materials that are considered hazardous, such as batteries and motor oil, cannot be accepted at the recycling center due to contamination concerns. However, these items can be dropped off at the Household Hazardous Waste facility, located at 1055 A Cleaner Way in Huntsville.
RANA’s goal is to make the Earth a greener place. Holladay remembers a quote that he once heard the deputy director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, Jeff Kitchens, say: “Every day is Earth Day.”
To sign up to and have your recyclables collected, click here.
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