[0] Chattanooga city leaders celebrated the grand opening of a new recycling center in Lookout Valley.
The new John A. Patten center accepted its first load of recycleables today.
With a load of cans and bottles from Councilwoman Linda Bennett, a new recycling center starts serving the Lookout Valley area.
Bennett: "This is an exciting day for lookout valley this is a growing community."
Mayor Ron Littlefield and Rocky the Recycling Raccoon were on hand to get the center started just off Cummings Highway.
Littlefield: "I just want to thank you all for making it a reality."
And across town, at the older Orange Grove recycling center, Joe Fowlkes is excited by the news. Fowlkes runs a curbside recycling business he started when the city cut back on curbside service to just once a month.
Fowlkes: "For us, we have found a lot of people who do like our service, a lot of elderly who can't get stuff out in big piles once a month who do like our service a lot."
While the convenience of the new center to people in the area might hurt his business, Fowlkes says he isn't concerned. Having another place to drop off his collections makes business that much easier.
Fowlkes: "That's gonna be great, because when we fill up on lookout mountain and have to come all the way downtown that takes an hour out of our day, it slows us down it makes us inefficient, it burns gas."
And for folks dropping off their own recycleables, Bennett says the location of the center couldn't be better.
Bennett: "We do have a very committed community to recycling so we're very pleased to have these improvements, thank you to public works we appreciate all the hard work that you've put in to improve this now emerging community center."
The new recycling center accepts old batteries and used motor oil...items the city's curbside recycling doesn't pick up.
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