The McCollumn - 09/03

Denson Rec more important than recycling bins

The city’s recycling program is an admirable undertaking.

I’m proud to see the citizens of our town (what few of them do actually recycle) come together to try to help our environment.

For years, I’ve loved driving by Miles Thomas Field and seeing the multi-colored smiling faced receptacles waiting to be used.

Until now, that is.

Now, two large, green and compartmentalized dumpsters divided by material composition and an open-air trailer filled with cardboard blight the parking lot of the Denson Drive Recreation Center.

As I drove by and saw the bins for myself, I was immediately struck by one overwhelmingly apparent factor: the odor.

Even with most of the lids closed and my own sinuses being stricken with seasonal allergies, I could still make out a pungent and unpleasant attack on my sense of smell.

Recyclables they may be, but they’re also still garbage.

Do we really want that odor that close to one of our recreation centers – a place where children take power tumbling, where the citizenry gathers to vote, and, soon, where there will be pottery and ceramics classes.

For that matter, do we want those smells just a healthy breeze away from our middle school. Something tells me we might have trouble attracting new families to the area if our only middle school smells like a small landfill on the wrong days.

The parking spaces now occupied by the recycling receptacles seem usable at a glance, but I used my Jeep Grand Cherokee as a model to see if parking was still possible.

(I should mention that there were multiple signs telling me not to do this posted around the bins, but, like most drivers in this town, I ignore these sorts of signs as I see fit.)

If hard-pressed to find a parking spot for Summer Swing or some other event held at the Denson Rec, one could, in fact, park in the former spaces in front of the bins.

However, larger vehicles (Suburbans and their ilk) would block outgoing traffic quite easily.

Can we really afford to lose that many parking spaces in that area?

More than the practical concerns of this new scheme, though, I’m troubled by how the city is treating the old Denson Rec Center.

Maybe it’s just because I’m an Opelikian of a certain age, but many of my formative years were spent at Denson Drive.

There were countless hours spent at Friday Night Drop-Ins in middle school.

There was the ill-fated attempt at joining the Swim Team that resulted in me swimming two and half laps, getting out of the pool and storming to Ms. Ellen’s desk and demanding to use the phone to call my mother to come get me.

There were tons of visits to the offices to chat with Ms. Ellen and Ms. Betty – the lifeblood of that place back when I was a kid. Not many adults would take the time to talk with a mouthy know-it-all but they were always quite kind.

I understand the recycling bins have to go somewhere, but to put them at Denson Drive is an insult to those of us who spent our lives growing up there.

I don’t know who made the decision to move the bins there, but I’m almost certain the folks in charge at Parks and Recreation had no idea it was coming.

Those folks love Denson Drive more than I do, and I know they wouldn’t sully her in this manner.

Move the bins.

Find a more suitable spot.

Denson Drive is not an acceptable location – now or ever.