West Mobile Gets Long-Awaited Recycling Drop-Off Center

West Mobile residents no longer have to drive across town to recycle after county officials opened a new drop-off recycling center in the area on Thursday, Nov. 19, capping years of planning.

The facility sits at 7450 Hitt Road near Schillinger Road, on the site formerly occupied by the Brewer Center. At roughly 13,000 square feet, the new center gives west Mobile households a much closer option than the recycling drop-off points previously available on the other side of the city.

Mobile County Commission President Connie Hudson championed the project, which county officials say addresses a long-standing gap in recycling access for residents living on the west side of Mobile. Before the center opened, those residents typically had to haul recyclables considerably farther to reach an existing drop-off location.

Goodwill Easter Seals will operate and manage the new center, according to county officials, and the arrangement is structured so that day-to-day operations come at no direct cost to taxpayers. The center is set to operate seven days a week, giving residents broad flexibility for dropping off recyclable materials on their own schedule rather than being limited to weekday hours.

Funding for the project came in part through a Coastal Impact Assistance Program grant issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

County officials welcomed the public to the site starting at 3 p.m. on opening day.

Where the grant money came from

The Coastal Impact Assistance Program was created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. It distributed $250 million a year for fiscal years 2007 through 2010 in federal revenue from offshore oil and gas production on the Outer Continental Shelf to six producing states, Alabama, Alaska, California, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, and to their coastal counties and parishes. In Alabama, the recipients were the state, the Baldwin County Commission and the Mobile County Commission.