The
Green Box
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FILMSCRIPTS ON SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
This script is one of a series published to help
lecturers, teachers, and group leaders prepare for viewing
and.discussion of solid waste management films. It is
also intended for those in an audience who want
a permanent record of the data presented in a film.
It was written by Stuart Finley, Inc.,
the producer of the film, in close cooperation with staff of the
Federal solid waste management program.
Titles and publication numbers of scripts
for solid waste management films are shown below.
Third Pollution SW-39c.l
, Bury, or What? SW-39c.2
^Recycling SW-39c.3
\JOOODumps SW-39c.4
^ the Bag SW-39c.5
^The Green Box SW-39c.6
Kflie Stuff We Throw Away SW-39c.7
SWhat's New in Solid Waste Management? SW-39c.8
Instructions for borrowing or purchasing these films are
given with each script and are summarized in the
brochure Films Tett the Story, available from the
Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office, Washington, D.C., 20402.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1972
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THE GREEN BOX
17 minutes, 16-mm motion picture, sound, color, 1970. Order no. M-2097-X*
THE GREEN BOX illustrates a novel rural solid waste collection and disposal
system developed by Chilton County, Alabama, to serve its 26,000 predominantly
rural residents scattered over a 700-square-mile area. Four-cubic-yard containers
located throughout the county are emptied every other day by a specially
equipped packer truck. The county's old rat-infested dumps were closed and
roadside maintenance problems have been solved. The film is designed to interest
the lay public and assist local officials to devise workable rural solid waste
management systems.
Charles C. Gay, Jr. recalls the
Chilton County situation prior to
"Clean and Green"
Slides showing Chilton County
dumps as they were
Coosa County dumps today; tilt
from sky to roadside dump
Close up of dump showing flies,
zooming out to show tires and then
luldering fire in background
Packer track approaches on
way and camera pans to include the
"You wouldn't believe it, but at one time I got
numerous complaints about this area. This was the city
dump of Clanton, Alabama. It was loaded with garbage,
rubbish, flies, rats, and other vermin ... burning all the
time, with smoke billowing from it. That situation has
been eliminated now that we have our new sanitary
landfill. We don't get the complaints that we used to get
from this source. This old sign here served its purpose in
its day—a very useful purpose. Now we are considering
whether to take it to the sanitary landfill and bury it or .
up to the court house and hang it on the wall with a
plaque under it saying, "RETIRED."
Charlie Gay, the County Sanitarian, took these pictures, made
up a slide show, showed it all over the County ... and just
raised hell.
The summers are hot in Alabama and the garbage from 26,000
people just sat and simmered in the sun. This is how the
dumps in the next county look today.
When Charlie made his "Let's Clean Up Chilton County"
speeches, he'd mention: swarms of pesky flies, rats (it turned
out there were 1,800 of them at the Clanton city dump),
smoke and air pollution, and one other matter ... self respect.
The problem was very difficult. Door-to-door pickup through-
out Chilton County's sparsely settled 700 square miles would
have been far too expensive. And so some civic leaders thought
*Borrow from: National Medical Audiovisual Center
Pnrchue from: Stuart Fintey, Inc.
3428 Mansfield Road, Falls Church, Va. 22041
Area Code 703/802-7700
Prints-$200
Cleared for TV.
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container; packer truck picks up up the idea of “the green box.” Locate them at convenient
container and empties it places along highways so they would be as close or closer than
the nearby open dump. Mechanically pick up the refuse every
other day with a big packer truck. Then establish a carefully
operated, centrally located sanitary landfill and close the
County’s 40 major unauthorized open dumps and the
hundreds of smaller ones. The Bureau of Solid Waste
Management of the Department of Health, Education and
Welfare* awarded a demonstration grant . . the objective: to
determine if such a container collection system would be a
practical solution for rural solid waste management problems
which exist all over the country.
City collection in Clanton The town of Clanton, the Chilton County Seat, already had a
good house-to-house collection system, as did the other three
municipalities of Jemison, Maplesvile, and Thorsby. These
collection programs were continued unchanged but the refuse
was no longer taken to their four dumps but rather to the new
sanitary landfill. These communities approved of the new
system because smoke and odor had always been a problem
and all of their dumps were nearly full. County Sanitarian Gay
discovered to his sorrow that there is no simple formula for
assessing rat populations and exterminating them. With the
help of the Alabama Department of Health and the United
States Public Health Service, the rats were exterminated and
the dumps covered with clean earth. During 1969, nearly every
house in the four incorporated towns was visited one or more
times to explain the new solid waste disposal program and
potential benefits of rat and mosquito eradication both at the
old dumps and in town.
Chilton County Sanitary Landfill The key element of the Clean and Green Project is the new
operation sanitary landfill located on County property near the
intersection of two major highways. The use of a single,
centrally located till site would increase hauling costs
somewhat, but proved to be much more economical than
operating multiple landfills with duplicate equipment and
personnel. The Project Director and the Project Consultant
designed the landfill after taking borings, determining soil
types and drainage conditions, and making a thorough study
of the site. The new landfill manager attended the one weck
training course “Sanitary Landfill Principles” conducted by
the Bureau of Solid Waste Management in Cincinnati.
Judge Thon s A. Hayes, Probate “Let’s face it. After all, we were forced into the garbage
Judge, Board of Rewnue and Con- collection business.
*Now the Office of Solid Waste Management Programs U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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trol, Chilton County, discusses how
the project originated
Truck shot showing woman putting
refuse into container from her car
Packer truck empties container near
cotton patch
Container by Coosa River recrea-
tion area
Container by side of road; packer
pickup shot from inside cab of
truck
Lady disposing of garbage from her
car to a container; another lady
empties a can of garbage and re-
twns can to trunk of her car
“We were using the open pit system all over the county,
which didn’t work at all because the people weren’t
using the pit. So we decided that we would go to a
countywide garbage system because we knew this was
going to be a success. But we had to get the people in
the county to use it. So with the help of the extension
service, our Health Department, and other civic
organizations, we started talking “Clean and Green” and
you know, the funny thing was, when we first started
putting out these cans the telephone would ring saying
“Judge, get that can away from my place. I don’t want a
garbage place right at my front door.” So we nearly
wore out the fIrst cans we got moving ‘em from one
place to the other. But you know after 6 months, the
telephone quit ringing and for the next 3 months it went
to ringing “Judge, bring a can over here to my place. We
need one.”
The novel part of the Project Clean and Green is the green
box. Its use could convert an uncontrollable solid waste
problem into an orderly system. . . if it worked.
Because of the extensive mileage to be travelled, a large packer
was selected, which, however, would not exceed highway load
limits. It has a loading lift capacity of 4,500 pounds and a
capacity of 30 cubic yards.
The container collection system has proved so successful that
there are now 90 boxes and each one is being emptied every
other day.
Most of the containers are situated along highways. It soon
became apparent that during wet weather the packer truck and
people using the containers were inconvenienced by mud.
Thus, a paved area was provided to facilitate all-weather
access.
There is no use having a system of containers if people don’t
use them. So, an intensive user education program was
undertaken. The County Extension Chairman and the County
Sanitarian gave talks to civic clubs and church groups. The
new project was promoted by the local newspaper and radio
station, and even on television. Many door-to-door visits were
made.
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Walnut Creek Methodist Church However, people don’t always react favorably no matter how
s u; church with tree and clouds good the engmeering proposals may be... or how intensive
in the *y the salesmanship. Here is Cletice Ingram, pastor of the Walnut
Creek United Methodist Church, with his comments.
Pastor Ingram gives his views of the “When I heard that the landfill was going to come to
project; during and after Clanton and be located right across the highway from
the Walnut Creek United Methodist Parsonage and
Church, I was very much opposed because I had seen the
various dumps across the country, with all of the rats
and the flies and the smell. But now that we have the
landfill, we can see that it’s cleaned Chilton County up
and I’m very much in favor of it because it does keep us
‘Clean and Green’.”
Project Director Robert Alexander “After learning that it would be my responsibility to
at the isndflll expisining its opera- take care of the Clanton Landfill here in Chil ton
tion County, I decided that I would look at other landfills. I
went to several across the State and out of the State
also, and mostly what I saw was a combination landfill
and dump. We were determined to try to have an ideal
landfill here in Chilton County. As a result, we have
what I think is one of the cleanest landfills in the
country.”
Landfill covering operation con- Mr. Bob is the County Engineer and supervises the whole
tinues project which operates 7 days a week. He has hired four
full-time men. The Landfill Manager weighs and records the
loads brought for placement at the fill. The Landfill Tractor
Operator is almost wholly occupied with the daily placement,
compaction and covering of the wastes. The Rural Collection
Truck Driver collects rural wastes and maintains his packer
truck. And a Utility Operator substitutes for other personnel
and is responsible for maintenance of wholesome
environmental conditions at the sanitary landfill site.
Pan of n*ii Street in aanton Clanton, Alabama has a population of 5,800. It’s what
“damyankees” call a sleepy southern town. But Clanton is just
like any community in one respect. If you look, there is
always someone who doesn’t relish the thought of higher
taxes. Any new and improved public works system has to cost
more than the inferior system it replaced. So, let’s look at the
politics of this situation and visit the Board of Commissioners
in the Chilton County Courthouse.
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Deliberations of the Board of
Revenue and Control with previous
case concluding; Judge Hayes asks
about Clean and Green; Jim Walters
explains the project
Landfill weighing station
“Gentlemen:
The next order of business will be our Clean and Green
Project. Jim, as you know, our Clean and Green Project
is now 2 years old, and the Board would like to ask some
questions pertaining to this project. Do you think it’s
doing a good job of cleaning up our right-of-ways? Also,
could you compare our program with the other systems
being used over the country? As concerns the cost of
this project, are we getting our money’s worth? And is
there anything else that you might think of to bring us
up to date on our Clean and Green Project?”
“Judge:
It’s a real pleasure to give you a report on Project Clean
and Green. The public acceptance of our project has
been most encouraging. The job that has been done of
cleaning up the county is phenomenal. The costs that
have been incurred are reasonable and the real clincher is
that there have been four other counties in the State of
Alabama who have adopted the system after visiting our
project. Now, during this 2-year period, we’ve
implemented the system of containers for storage of
rurally generated waste. We have operated the sanitary
landfill in a way that is much better than any I’ve seen in
operation anywhere. We have taken all of the solid waste
from ii umcipalities in the County and we have taken
care of the solid waste generated by the industry in the
County. The series of containers that I mentioned, these
4-cubic-yard containers that you are each very familiar
with from having driven past so many times and having
seen them in use, we had placed at about 43 container
sites by November of last year. Now these 43 sites have
on them 57 containers and they are arranged so that 50
percent of the county live nearer to one of these than
1.6 miles and 90 percent of the people live within 3.7
miles of a container. As a matter of fact, 95 percent of
the people are nearer than 4.8 miles. So that these
containers are located to serve the people and the people
respect the containers. They use them and maintain
them. Some clean-up is necessary at the container sites
but not a large amount. The people appreciate the fact
that there is a system for disposal of their waste.”
If a public works system produces good results and is
economical, it’s a good system. But if it produces good results
and is expensive, lots of people will say it’s a poor system-
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Accordingly, the project is being carefully evaluated. Every
ton of refuse is weighed and functional unit costs are being
compiled for the final report. While costs will vary widely in
other parts of the country, this landfill is handling 800 tons a
month at about $2 per ton including equipment amortization.
Project Consultant Dr. Jim Walters of the University of
Alabama gives us more fmancial data.
Jim Walters gives econonic evalua- “Judge:
tion Responding specifIcally to your question on cost, it was
April or May of last year before we got the entire
operation to a point where we thought it was
representative. During May of last year, in our rural
collection system, we collected 116 tons at a unit cost of
$10.17 per ton. Now during May of this year, we
collected 184 tons and the unit cost was down to $6.75
per ton, a much more reasonable cost as the result of
handling more waste during the same period. For the
similar period this year, our sanitary landfill operations
cost us $2.06 per ton of waste disposed. This is within a
reasonable cost figure.”
Alexander looks at improved Coosa A few additional developments occurred during the project.
County contain ’ The tendency of container lids to stand open proved
objectionable. Nearby Coosa County, which is adopting the
system, has procured boxes which are not as high and have a
sure-close lid.
Steam cfrmning equipn nt being Operating experience has indicated the need for periodic site
used to clean container and container cleanup. Regular personnel operate this steam
cleaning equipment to sanitize the boxes which have drainage
holes in the bottom. No sanitary problems have been
experienced from steam cleanout. The County system of
mobile radio communications is used to call prompt attention
to trouble spots. The container system has replaced the
expensive County program which previously cleaned up
highway right-of-ways and stream channels. Rapid
maintenance prevents a small nuisance from becoming a large
one and psychologically reinforces the public’s memory that
the container sites are not dirty, disagreeable places.
Packer truck approaches from the Will the green box work in your county? That depends on
dit ice and picks up a container whether this is the right system for you. . . on your technical
skills.., and local leadership. If you’re interested in reading
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the project report, contact your regional office or the Office
of information of the Bureau of Solid Waste Management.
Clean and Green is not much physically.., just 90 green
boxes, a packer truck, a crawler tractor, a new landfill, four
employees, and a lot of closed dumps and dead rats. Really,
it’s a state of mind . . . the determination to act and
cooperate . . . the initiative to devise a new and effective
system... the engineering skill to make it work .. . and the
human relations ability to solicit the essential public support.
Clean and Green is Sanitarian Charlie Gay who originally
raised a rumpus, Judge Hayes who didn’t cave in when people
objected, Pastor Ingram who thought badly of it and then
changed his mind, Jim Walters who worried about the
technical details, Mister Bob who runs it and is proud of it,
and many others. The green box promises to go to work all
over the country ... but it all started in Chilton County,
Alabama.
ha 633
, u.s.covER, E,nffiJHn, OFncL 1972— 759-397/133 7
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