That's where Shelbyville Recycled Fiber Company, a division of RockTenn, is accepting plastics for recycling, answering requests from many in the county to begin the practice.

Last month, the county's solid waste authority agreed to work with the company, which began to accept plastic from the public at the site at the first of March.

Diane Forbes is general manager of the firm, which has been in Shelbyville for 28 years. They have teamed up with Gay Ervin, the county's solid waste coordinator, to make the recycling concept a reality.

To the left of the main building are a row of recycling bins, some for paper and now, others for plastics.

"We're trying to pull as much plastic material as we possibly can ... we're working with ones and two, but we hope to pull more materials out to recycle," she said.

Before you start scratching your heads about the numbers, Forbes is referring to the types of plastic accepted by the firm. Type 1 plastics includes items such as two-liter soda bottles, water bottles, cooking oil bottles and peanut butter jars. Type 2 are containers like detergent bottles and milk jugs.

The two types can be co-mingled together, she said.

They are all identified by a triangle with the number in the center on the bottom of each bottle. There are other grades of plastics as well, such as those which contain nylon or even glass.

"It's really hard (to tell the difference) unless you've been in the business for a long time," Forbes said. She explained that some types can be identified from the smoke they generate when burned, with some leaving strange patterns or releasing fibers into the air.

The company is not paying for the material, it's a drop off site only. Forbes said that caps on the bottles would not be a problem but they ask that bottles that contained detergent be rinsed out before turning them in to be recycled.

They can't accept plastics that contained motor oil or anti-freeze. If citizens bring the bottles in a plastic bag, they ask that they be emptied out into the recycling bin because the plastic used in the bags is of a grade they do not accept.

But not only are they accepting basic household plastics, but local body shops are dropping off plastic bumpers from vehicles that have been in fender benders. A large pile of these were already gathered inside the recycling center.

The plus side is that the body shops would have had to pay to dispose of it in the Cedar Ridge landfill. The county, too, has to use taxpayer money to pay for landfilling household waste. Considering the number of plastic bottles that get thrown in the garbage every day, the savings to the county -- meaning the taxpayers -- could be considerable.

"It's just a win-win for everyone," Forbes said of the effort. The solid waste authority had looked at other options for recycling, but found them to be too cost prohibitive.

The authority had problems justifying putting plastic recycling in its convenience centers because of the bulk involved with the bottles - there simply wasn't room for it. Other methods were also found to be too expensive as well.

The plant already recycles 2,600 to 2,800 tons of paper per month, she said, although much of it comes from an 100-mile radius of Shelbyville, so savings are already coming to other counties by recycling.

Since the recycling program has just kicked off two weeks ago, word is beginning to spread around the county. So far, they've taken in about 1,000 pounds, which Forbes describes as a "very small amount."

Ervin says she is going to do a county-wide program with 4-H to let them know about the effort and other methods to let the public know that recycling is now available.

"I believe the money saved by not putting the plastics in the landfill ... I believe it will be significant dollars in a year," Irvin said.