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Tree giveaways, recycling fair highlight month
Keep Liberty Beautiful
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February is a busy month for us at Keep Liberty Beautiful.
This week alone is busy with tree giveaways for Georgia Arbor Day as well as our quarterly Recycle It! Fair for electronics and household goods. There will be a prescription take-back, too.
Let me tell you about each of these events and more and how they can benefit you and our community.
First, Georgia’s Arbor Day is this Friday. We celebrate Arbor Day as a state because we are in one of the best periods for planting trees in our area. Trees do so much for us. Think of them as our big leafy friends:
• They provide beauty and shade
• They reduce noise pollution
• They clean the air of toxins and produce oxygen for us to breathe (Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture)
• They slow water runoff and reduce erosion so they protect our water quality (USDA Forest Service)
• They even help us economically by increasing property values (USDA Forest Service)
Trees truly are good, leafy friends. Dogs better watch out — they could be replaced as man’s best friend.
Because trees benefit us in so many ways, we have annual tree giveaways for Arbor Day to encourage local citizens to plant. We will have giveaways from 9 a.m.-noon Friday at Farmers Natural Foods on Highway 196 West and from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday at the Liberty County Health Department on Highway 84.
We will have 4-to-6-foot dogwoods, white oaks, a few bald cypress, river birch, sweet bay magnolias and crape myrtles — red, white and lavender — and some oleanders.
You can plant these trees at work, at home, at your church, or with your organization, or somewhere special in your community — with permission, of course. The more trees we plant now, the more our community will benefit from them in the future.
To reserve a tree, call 880-4888 or email klcb@coastalnow.net by noon Thursday. After that, trees will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis at the giveaway sites.
 Also from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, we will have our Recycle It! Fair at the Liberty County Health Department to recycle electronics and a variety of household items. Our fair partners — Goodwill Industries, the Liberty County Solid Waste Department and Coastal Auto and Recycling — help us recycle the following items:
• e-waste such as old computers, printers, monitors, computer accessories and stereo equipment will be collected. We also will accept cell phones and accessories, too. All hard drives will be wiped clean for your security by Goodwill Industries.
• household paint, as long as the cans are sealed well and are not rusted. If your cans are not in good condition, add cat litter or sand to the paint, let it dry up and dispose in your regular garbage.
• fluorescent light bulbs and CFLs
• used motor oil, antifreeze and car batteries. Never pour these vehicle fluids down the drain or into a storm drain or just dump them. They cause severe water-pollution problems. When you are storing motor oil and other auto fluids to bring in for recycling, it is essential to put them in clean, dry containers so that the fluid is not contaminated.
• household batteries, printer ink cartridges, telephone books, hardback books, household goods and clothes and shoes that are in clean, decent condition. You also can drop off some of the many items that Midway Middle School students collect.
Also on Saturday we, in partnership with the Hinesville Police Department, will hold a prescription take-back at the fair. Plan to bring in any old prescription and over-the-counter medications that need disposal. Never flush these items down the toilet — we don’t want this stuff in our waterways, do we? These types of items have a detrimental effect on our waterways and, consequently, on aquatic life and even humans. The only items HPD cannot accept are hypodermic needles. A special thanks to these officers for making sure that these items will be disposed of safely.
And then, from 10 a.m.-noon Feb. 23, our friends at The Heritage Bank main office in Hinesville will be holding a “shred day” for the public.
For more information on any of these activities, go to www.keeplibertybeautiful.org or our Facebook page, call 880-4888 or email klcb@coastalnow.net.

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