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The Decatur County Commissioners met for their first meeting of the month on Tuesday meeting. The only new item on the agenda was a special presentation by Doug Young of Young Recycling and Dumpster Services, which began operation of the city’s transfer station late last year.

“I believe our recycling center is very important to Decatur County,” Young said. He recalled how he acquired the business, and that he and his son Brandon are joint partners in the recycling business, with the intention of Young being a minority partner involved for about five years, with the intention of his son running it for years to come.

“As many of you know, there’s three components to Young Dumpster Services,” he continued. “There’s metal recycling; we see about 25 to 30 customers a day, 85% of them being Decatur County citizens. About half of them rely on the recycling for their income.” According to Young, most of these people either lost a source of their income or were forced to go elsewhere when SmithCo, the prior owners of the transfer station, closed.

The next component of the business he discussed was the dumpster services, with Young Recycling offering dumpster services not just with Decatur County, but surrounding counties up to 60 miles away, even up to 100 miles for special projects.

“The third thing, and the main reason why I’m here today, is our transfer station,” he said. “We had to make a lot of tough decisions, like cutting out the City of Colquitt, Seminole Sanitation, and a bunch of other commercial accounts.” Young touched on those he has worked with since acquiring the transfer station, including the sheriff’s department, Mike Floyd and Alan Thomas, leading into the main topic of discussion, the trash agreement between the city and county.

“Long before the prior owners took over the transfer station, sometime around nine years ago… there were problems between the city and county,” Young said, “and the trash quit coming to Decatur County… For nine years it just wasn’t here.” He continued to explain the city and county’s agreement, saying that when the city agreed to take over the county’s trash, the agreement stated that all county trash needed to go to the Decatur County landfill. Young also recounted his previous meetings he had with the city council in regards to the agreement between the city and the county, these meetings specifically dealing with the old equipment left at the transfer station, and the tonnage rate charged by the transfer station.

Young concluded his presentation by taking questions from the commissioners. The meeting was adjourned afterward.