Green Box (1970)

you wouldn't believe it one time I got near looking freaks about this a there this was a city dump a plan Lodi with garbage and rubbing rubbish sighs rats lot of women burning all the time with smoke darling from it that situation has been eliminated Malthus we have our youth serve tear land feel we don't have those complaints that we had at one time to miss so what this old sign here for instance it served its purpose it is stay a very useful purpose may only considering whether to take it to the sanitary landfill in barrack up to the courthouse and hang it on the wall with a plaque on it very tired [Music] Charlie gave the county sanitarian took these pictures made up a slideshow showed it all over the county and just raised hell the summers are hot in Alabama the garbage from 26,000 people just sat and simmered in the Sun this is now the dumps in the county next door look today [Applause] when Charlie made his let's clean up children County speeches he'd mentioned swarms of pesky flies rats it turned out there were 18 hundred of them at the Clinton city dump spoke in to air pollution and one other matter self-respect [Music] problem was very difficult door-to-door pickup through our children County's sparsely settled 700 square miles would have been far too expensive and so some civic leaders thought of the idea of the green box [Music] locate them at convenient places along highways so they would be as close or closer than the nearby open dump mechanically pick up the refuse every other day with a big Packer truck then establish a carefully operated centrally located sanitary landfill and close the counties 40 major unauthorized to open dumps and the hundreds of smaller ones the burrowers solid waste management of the Department of Health Education and Welfare awarded a demonstration grant the objective to determine if such a container collection system would be a practical solution for rural solid waste management problems which exist all over the country the town of Clanton the children county seat Oh a good house-to-house collection system as did the three other municipalities of Jenison Maplesville and Thursby these collection programs will continue and unchanged but the refuse was no longer taken to poor dumps but rather to the new sanitary landfill these communities have proved in the new system because smoke and odor and problem and all of their dumps were nearly full County sanitary and gay discovered to his sorrow that there's no simple formula for assessing rat populations and exterminating them the United States Public Health Service the rats were exterminated and the Dubs covered with clean earth during 1969 nearly every house in the four incorporated towns was visited one or more times to explain the new solid waste disposal program and potential benefits of rat and mosquito eradication both at the old dumps and in town the key element of the clean and green project is the new sanitary landfill located on County property near the intersection of two major highways the use of a single centrally located fill site would increase hauling costs somewhat but proved to be much more economical than operating multiple landfills with duplicate equipment and personnel the project director and the project consultant designed the landfill after taking borings determining soil types and drainage conditions and making a thorough study of the site the new land floor manager attended the one-week training course sanitary landfill principles conducted by the Bureau of solid waste management in society let's face it after all we were forced into the garbage collection business Judge Thomas phase of the Board of Revenue and control here is an open pit system all over the county which didn't work out successful at all because the people would not go to the pits and dumping so we decided to really go to a countywide garbage system of course we knew this gonna be a success we had to get the people to County to use it so but it means with the help of the Extension Service a Health Department and other civic organization we started talking cleaning rings and you know the funny thing was when we first started putting out these cans the telephone would rain say George get that can away from my place I don't want our garbage place in that front door so we like to wrap the pushpins we got moving up from one place to other but you know eight to six months the telephone foot range then the next remark they went to ring it George bring your tent over here to map place we need one the novel part of project clean and green is the green box it's use could convert an uncontrollable solid waste problem into an orderly system if because of the extensive mileage to be traveled a large Packer was selected which however would not exceed highway load limits it has a load lift capacity of 4,500 pounds and a capacity of 30 cubic yards the continued collection system has proved so successful that there are now 90 boxes and each one is being emptied every other day [Music] most of the containers are situated along highways it soon became apparent that during wet weather the packer truck and people using the containers were inconvenienced by mud thus a paved area was provided to facilitate all-weather access [Music] no use having a system of containers of people don't use them so an intensive user education program was undertaken the County Extension chairman of the county sanitarium gave talks to civic clubs and church groups the new project was promoted by the local newspaper and radio station and even on television many door-to-door visits were made however people don't always no matter how good the engineering proposals may be or how intensive the salesmanship here is Pledis England pastor of the Walnut Creek United Methodist Church with his comments when I heard that the landfill was going to come to Clanton and be located right across the highway from the world of Creek United Methodist parsonage and Church I was very much opposed because I had seen the various dumps across the country with all of the rats and the Flies and the smells but now that we have the landfill we can see that it's clean Chilton County up and I'm very much in favor of it because it does keep us clean and green director Robert Alexander after learning that it would be my responsibility to take care of the Kratt landfill here chi'lan County I decided that I would look at further landfill and I went to several over the and out of the state also and mostly what we saw was a combination landfill and down we were determined to try to have an ideal landfill here in children townie we have what I think is one of the cleanest landfills in the country mr. Bob is the county engineer and supervises the whole project which operates seven days a week he's hired for full-time men the landfill manager weighs and records the loads brought for placement at the Phil the landfill tractor operator is almost wholly occupied with the daily placement compaction and covering of the wastes the world collection truck driver collects rural wastes and maintains his Packer truck and a utility operator substitutes for other personnel and is responsible for maintenance of wholesome environmental conditions at the sanitary landfill site Titan Alabama has a population of 5,800 people it's what Damn Yankees Carlos sleepy southern town [Music] [Applause] [Music] but Curtin is just like any community in one respect if you look there's always someone who doesn't relish the thought of higher taxes any new and improved Public Works system has to cost more than the inferior system it replaced so let's look at the politics of this situation and visit the Board of Commissioners in the children County Courthouse Venice will be our clean and green project Jim as you know our cleaning range right now right a two-year-old and the board would like to ask some questions pertaining to this project such as do you think it's doing a good job of cleaning our throttle ways also we'd like comparison with the other systems being used over the country and we'd like to know obtain to the coast for this project we are we getting our money's worth or anything else that you might bring us up to date on our clean and green project George it's a real pleasure to give you a report on project clean and green the public acceptance of our project has been most encouraging the job that has been done of cleaning up the county is phenomenal the cars that have been in corridor reasonable and the real clincher is that they for other counties in the state of Alabama who have adopted the system after visiting our project now during this two-year period we've implemented the system of containment or storage of worldly generated waste we have operated the sanitary landfill in a way that is much better than any I've seen in operation anywhere we have taken all of the solid waste and municipalities in the county and we have taken care of the solid waste generated by the industry in the county the series of containers that I mentioned these four cubic yard containers that you're each very familiar with from having driven past many times and having seen them in use we had placed at about 33 container sites by November of last year now these further three sites had on them fifty-seven containers and over a range so that 50% of the people in the county lived in to one of these than 1.6 miles and 90% of the people lived at least as close as three point seven miles to a container the matter of fact 95% of the people were new eight miles so that these containers have been located to serve the people and the people have respected the containers they have used them and have maintained them we have some cleanup there's necessary the container sides but we don't have a large amount the people I appreciate the fact that there's a system for disposing of their waste the Public Works system produces good results in busy canonical it is a good system but if it produces good results and is expensive lots of people will say it is a poor system accordingly the project is being carefully evaluated every tonne of refuse is weighed and functional unit costs are being compiled for the final report while costs will vary widely in other parts of the country this landfill is handling 800 tons a month at about $2 per ton including the equipment amortization project consultant dr. Jim Walters of the University of Alabama gives us more financial data George was spamming specifically to your question on cost it was April and May of last year before we got the entire operation - a fact though we thought it would representative Norton May of last year in our war collection system we collected 116 times of the unit cost of 10 dollars and 17 cents per ton now doing the May of this year we collected 184 times and the unit cost on that amount of waste will down to six dollars and 75 cents per ton a much more reasonable cost of handling the waste during same period the similar period this year our sanitary landfill operations cost us two dollars and six cents per ton of waste disposed so that this is within a reasonable cost figure [Music] few additional developments occurred during the project the tendency of container lids to stand open proved objectionable nearby Coosa County which is adopting the system has procured boxes which are not as high and have Asherah closed lid operating experience has indicated the need for periodic sight in container clean-up regular personnel operate this steam cleaning equipment to sanitize the boxes which have drainage holes in the bottom no sanitary problems have been experienced from steam clean out the county system of mobile radio communications is used to call prompt attention to trouble spots the container system has replaced the expensive County program which previously cleaned up highway right-of-ways and stream channels rapid maintenance prevents a small nuisance from becoming a large one and psychologically Riaan for the public's memory that the container sites are not dirty disagreeable places [Music] we'll the greenbox work in your County that depends on whether this is the right system for you on your technical skills and local leadership if you're interested in reading the project report contact your regional office or the office of information of the Bureau of solid waste management clean and green is not much physically just 90 green boxes a packer truck a crawler tractor a new landfill for employees and lots of clothes dumps and dead rats really it's the state of mind the determination to act and cooperate the initiative to devise a new and effective system the engineering skill to make it work and the Human Relations ability to solicit the essential public support clean and green is sanitary and Charlie Gabe who originally raised a rumpus judge Hayes who didn't cave in when people objected master Ingram who thought badly of it and then changed his mind Jim Walters who worried about the technical details mr. bob who runs it and is proud of it the others the greenbox promises to go to work all over the country but it all started in Chilton County [Music] [Applause]