Local family kicks off recycling at Heritage in Winter Garden

As a child, Amy James spent time digging through garbage cans to collect aluminum cans. James and her family would crush the cans and take them to a local recycling center. 

She was born into a recycling family and, from an early age, learned the importance of practicing it for the protection of the environment. 

Growing up in northwest Indiana during the ’70s and ’80s meant James could take her Coca-Cola bottles back to the store to receive the 10-cent deposit. Every can saved meant cash back in her pocket. 

Twenty-five years ago, she made the move down to Winter Garden, where she continued to cherish the lessons she learned from her childhood. 

When Winter Garden discontinued street recycling service in January, she understood the logic. 

But understanding and being content without recycling are two different things. 

James said to her husband, Kevin, “One day, we should start a recycling pick-up service.” 

He jumped on board, and eight months later, Ready, Set, Recycle was born. 

‘IT MADE SENSE’

Winter Garden discontinued its recycling services because of the cost and knowing most of the items collected still went to a landfill because of the amount of contamination. 

James said people were using their recycling bins as an extra trash can, and it caused all of it to go to waste. Cities canceling their city-provided curbside recycling services is a trend James expects to continue.

Ready, Set, Recycle was one of James’ many ideas that came to fruition. She has an entrepreneurial mind by nature from her dad, and she constantly throws out different ideas to Kevin James for the couple to try and start up. 

Typically, he isn’t on board, but this time was different. 

What set Ready, Set, Recycle apart from her other ideas was simple: the need for it and the sense it made. 

“The people (who) really like to recycle — they’ll pay for it,” James said. 

As the Jameses began thinking deeper on how to turn the simple idea into a reality, a similar company, Plant Street Recycling, launched.

At the time James already had spoken to Steve Pash, the assistant city manager of Winter Garden, and he had invited her and Kevin James to come talk to city staff. But they both were so busy and she put the meeting on the back-burner, but when she saw the Observer’s story about Plant Street Recycling, she realized they should spring back into action. 

James put her head back down and got to work on creating her vision into a reality. 

“It was a lot more planning than I had anticipated,” James said. “We didn’t have a truck. We had to go find a truck. We had to go find a trailer. We had to get a place to store our stuff, the bins that we had to source was not easy.” 

Every aspect of the business had to be created. She and her family decided on blue round 20-gallon bins to use to set themselves apart from Plant Street Recycling so it’ll be easier if they are picking up on the same street. She had to make a website. 

“It’s not glitzy; I did that (website) on my own,” she said. “That was probably the hardest thing to do ever.” 

What helped was it wasn’t her first time starting a business, although it is her largest. While James homeschooled her son, she wanted to teach him the steps of starting a business, so the pair created a business on fixing car windows. 

Once the city approved Ready, Set, Recycle, the business sprung into action, and James decided on bringing all of the recycled goods to Recycling Services of Florida. It’s a family-owned business that began in the 1970s and is aimed to protect the planet by reducing waste’s impact. 

Eight months after the idea sparked in James’ mind, Ready, Set, Recycle kicked off its first pick-up Saturday, Dec. 6, in Heritage at Plant Street. 

Passion for recycling

The secret to starting the business wasn’t a huge plan or a brain that understood all of what went into creating a project.

It was passion. 

“I wasn’t going to give up,” James said. 

So she didn’t. 

Ready, Set, Recycle is run by Amy and Kevin James, their son, Kyle, and family friend Mat Bowling. All share the passion and love for educating the public on ways it can maintain the longevity of Earth and the town in which they live. 

Kevin James was born and raised in Winter Garden. Amy James said he can’t believe what the city has become and how it has grown since the ’70s. She described how the couple used to walk down Plant Street together, and everybody would recognize Kevin James. 

Now, they don’t see anyone they recognize because of how much it’s grown. 

“If it’s growing that much, then there’s that many more people living here, let’s continue to keep it clean,” James said. 

The community is the real reason why James and her family began Ready, Set, Recycle. She knows many in Winter Garden were upset by recycling services being removed and she thinks it’s important for the residents to know it’s still accessible to them. 

Education is her second priority. 

“What we’re picking up is going to be recycled,” James said. “It’s not going to the landfill, where if the city started to do it again, it’s where it would end up. And if it’s important to them, then we’re available for them.” 

When looking into the future and the goals James has for Ready, Set, Recycle, her main hope is for the community to jump aboard. 

“That it spreads like wildfire throughout the community, and not only are the adults recycling, but they’re teaching their children about it as well,” she said. 

It’s important to teach everyone the proper practices for recycling and trash management, she said. People can’t throw trash out of the windows of their cars, and James is hopeful residents will have learned lessons from recycling businesses.