FRANKLIN—The Project… Pollution Preventers were at Mary’z Cafe Wednesday evening to hand out bins for recycling to downtown businesses that braved the rain for an after-hours meeting.

Many business owners present were excited to see the Franklin students go through so much effort to bring recycling to downtown Franklin, including Andrew Holmes of Holmes Automotive and Performance.

“I have taken my recycling outside of the city ever since I opened,” he said. “It will be good for it to be that much more convenient.

“Anything that will cut down on the amount of trash going into the landfills is a good thing.”

Nancy Parrish, executive director at the Franklin Incubator, spoke for many business owners in saying they were excited to be able to put all of the little bins in each office, and have a dumpster to take recyclables on site. She was also excited to see so much effort being put into a project by middle and high school students.

“I thought the children did a great job — I was really impressed with all of the work they put into it and how organized they are,” she said. “I am excited for what it can mean for Franklin and for the pollution problem here.

“I think this is a very important project, I’m just not sure if everybody realizes how important it is.”

“Downtown Dan,” otherwise known as Dan Howe, executive director of Downtown Franklin Association, said he felt that the business owners are taking to it, and that participation will go up once more know about it.

“For years, a lot of them have asked me about it,” he said. “So, I am thinking that once the word gets out that there will be more of them involved.

“And one of the nice things about it is that these kids are willing to go the extra mile. The businesses here tonight will spread the word, but the kids are also going to be in the businesses and talking it up.”

Vanessa Stone and Angela Bird, both 15-year-old sophomores at Franklin High School, put the program together for that particular night. Bird said it’s been exciting to see how this has progressed over the two years, as they have set their sights on bringing recycling to downtown Franklin.

“At the beginning, we were not sure if it would happen,” she said. “We kept getting rejecting and rejected, and then finally, one person said yes. After that, it was kind of like a domino affect. And now we are going to be able to do it. It’s such a great thing.”

In October, the children are hoping to be able to kick it off, as far as bringing the recycling dumpsters into select locations. P3 (cubed), along with city officials, are looking to finalize dumpster locations in the coming weeks.

The maximum number that they project they will need is nine, and City Manager Randy Martin has previously said that at most the city, which is subsidizing downtown recycling, will spend is $3,000.

Stone said downtown was an important first step for their project.

“Downtown is important because this is a big part of Franklin,” she said. “If we don’t get them to recycle, then what are we going to do?”

Bird added that once they finalize downtown, some future projects include larger businesses and apartment complexes. But first, she said, they have to work on finalizing this one. The next step will be the Franklin Fall Festival on Oct. 4.

“We are going to be able to have recycling bins at Fall Festival,” she said. “For the first year ever, people at the Fall Festival will be able to recycle.

“Recycling is very important,” Bird continued. “We only have one earth, so we really need to take care of it.”

In other news, on Monday the Franklin City Council unanimously approved P3’s resolution to make Oct. 4 “GREEN Day,” with GREEN standing for Growing Recycling Efforts for the Environment Now.