There is money in recycling on Fort Jackson - for units that is.
The Army’s Qualified Recycling Program authorizes revenue-generating operations that allow installations to collect, process, and sell recyclable materials.
According to Fort Jackson Regulation 200-9, “units can receive monetary incentives by collecting recyclable materials and delivering them to the Recycling Center.”
The funding can be used to finance unfunded pollution prevention, energy conservation and occupational safety and health projects.
“When units recycle cardboard, pallets or scrap metal … they are able to get money once a quarter,” said Norman Weldon, Fort Jackson’s Recycling Program Manager.
The QRP is a great way for “units to get credit and clean your facilities,” Weldon said.
This is all part of the installation’s recycling objectives. Those include reducing solid waste sent to landfills, recovering recyclable materials of value, protecting national/natural resources, minimizing environmental pollution, and saving energy and water.
Recycling on Fort Jackson helps keep our environment beautiful, said Lisa McKnight, hazardous substance program manager of the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division, in an interview in 2023.
It helps “divert waste from landfills,” she said. “They go out to these beautiful country sides where they’re just going to take up your grandmother’s property and they’re going to dig a huge hole and fill it with trash. We try to recycle and find a home for everything.”
The other reason is that it’s required on Fort Jackson, according to FJ-Reg-200-9.
“It’s like stealing from the government when we throw plastic bottles in the trash, because we can get money for recyclables,” McKnight said.
This money is put into an account and distributed by the QRP oversight committee.
That committee is chaired by the garrison commander and includes (as voting members) representatives from the Directorate of Public Works, Resource Management Office, the Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation. Non-voting members of the committee include representatives of the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate, Installation Safety Office, Public Affairs Office and others at the discretion of the garrison commander.
Units will submit project proposals, with detailed cost estimates, to the committee to be considered for funding. The proposals must justify how they qualify as pollution prevention, energy conservation, of occupational safety and health project. The unit must email the appropriate resource management office stating funding is not available during the current fiscal year and a DA Form 4283 Facilities Engineering Work Request approved by DPW.
The proposals will be voted on by the committee.
For more information about the QRP program read FJ Reg 200-9.
The Recycling Center located at 5671 Liberty Division Road on Fort Jackson accepts cardboard, plastic bottles, soda bottles, one gallon cans from dining facilities, wooden pallets, scrap metal, and electronics like old television sets, microwaves and refrigerators, Weldon said.
(Editor’s note: Part of this article was taken from a story written by Emily Hileman.)