Leaders of the City of Tifton, Tift County and the Chamber of Commerce met with representatives of Pratt Recycling Thursday at the Georgia Agrirama to discuss the possibility of a partnership that would encourage recycling here and reduce the amount of waste at the landfill.

Pratt Recycling is the sixth largest corrugated packaging company in America and has manufacturing facilities in more than a dozen states. The company’s U.S. operations are based in Conyers.

Frank Killoran, a spokesman for the company, said that decomposition in landfills is more destructive to the environment than the exhaust from automobiles because of the methane gas and other toxins emitted from the sites. The company is working on a Waste-to-Energy facility at its Conyers mill which will provide power needs for the paper-making process.

Killoran said the company’s founder, Anthony Pratt, has vowed to invest $1 billion in recycling over the next 10 years. Those plans include 30 or more new facilities to collect the materials.

Bert Crowe, the city’s recycling superintendent, has been working with the company for three years. He said that Pratt Recycling financed the city’s new baler system at no charge, and the city has been able to pay the company back in full.

“They have been a great help,” Crowe said. “They buy the city’s baled paper and furnish the trailers and they have been a good company to work with.”

The company has also furnished collection bins for recyclables that are in place in many of the Tift County public school classroom. If the company establishes a regional material recovery facility here, school-aged children would be able to take field trips to the plant and learn first-hand the process of recycling and why it is important. Killoran said that 200 Atlanta schools and churches participate in Pratt’s recycling program and the schools are paid for the materials collected.

Crowe said that if the company establishes a material recovery facility here, the city would continue to collect the recyclables curbside but would be able to take the materials straight to Pratt’s Tifton plant.

Representatives from other communities, such as Sylvester, attended the presentation Thursday. Some smaller communities can’t afford to have recycling programs, but they could join in with the “Tifton Regional Recycling Facility” if it is established.

Crowe said communities could take recyclable materials and sort and bale them and Pratt would transport them either to its mill in Conyers or to other companies who wanted the materials. He said the state is requiring communities to come up with plans to reduce the waste stream and a regional facility could be the answer.

Also, grants are available through the Department of Community Affairs and other state agencies as well as federal grants and private industry partnerships. Regional grants are also possible with several communities in the area joining together to apply for them.

Crowe said the city of Griffin, which works with Pratt, was hoping for a 12 percent reduction in its waste stream after a year working with the company and realized a 19.8 percent reduction after the first year. He said Tift County had seen a 7 to 9 percent reduction since beginning work with the company and would like to see that number increase.

Crowe said he had spoken with local private garbage collection companies that work in Tifton and Tift County and representatives of those companies had indicated they would support Pratt’s collection of recyclable materials.

“If we put out recycle bins, it would reduce their tipping fees at the landfill,” Crowe said. “Pratt already wants to come in. They are waiting on us.”