About 300 homes in Vicksburg will be invited to participate in a volunteer recycling program beginning May 1.

Marie Thompson, director of policy for the city, said the program is funded by a $25,000 Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality grant the city received in July.

“The program will run for a year, possibly longer, depending on its success,” she said. “Participants will be given two recycling bins, blue for paper and green for No. 1 and No. 2 plastics, like soft drink and milk containers and liquid soap.”

She said letters about the program are being sent to the homes in the program area, which is bounded on the west by Cherry Street, east by Eisenhower Drive, north by East Avenue and the south by Chambers Street.

Participants will receive the lidded 18-gallon plastic bins, which stand about 2 feet tall, at orientation programs at the City Hall Annex, 1415 Walnut St., at 5:30 p.m. on April 24 and 26. If needed, a makeup program will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 5 at Glenwood Circle.

The recyclables will be collected by the city’s community services workers on Tuesdays, which is the program area’s regular garbage collection day. The items will be taken to MIDD-West Industries on Smokey Lane to be sorted and baled. MIDD-West currently handles recyclables from the city’s in-house recycling program for city buildings and from a recycling program conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center.

MIDD-West is a non-profit organization that provides employment for the handicapped. It maintains five recycling locations around Vicksburg for paper and No. 1 and No. 2 plastics.

“We’re ready for them to bring the material here,” executive director Kearney Waites said. “We’ll sort the items out and bale the papers, and a lot of the plastic we’ll shred and bale. We’ll shop for the best price, because the money we make goes for the wages of our disabled workers.”

The program is the second attempt at a citywide recycling program. In 1992, then-Mayor Robert Walker had a 90-day pilot recycling program that involved 170 homes in the Enchanted Hills subdivision. The program ended when the city and Browning-Ferris Inc., which provided the services for the pilot program, failed to reach an agreement on a long-term contract to expand the service.