On average, the LOU community produces 800 tons of trash per day – enough to fill 20 18-wheeler trailers.

That statistic is one thing Michelle Robinson, recycling coordinator for the City of Oxford, said spurred the decision to expand the Oxford Transfer Station on Pea Ridge Road. Elected officials from the City of Oxford and Lafayette County, Environmental Services staff members and Three Rivers administrators attended a ribbon cutting for the expansion, which took place last Friday.

The expansion is something Robinson said will meet a real need for residents.

“We take in garbage from the city, the county and the university at this one transfer station,” Robinson said. “This is the first time that this building has been expanded since 1990. With the growth of Oxford and with the county and university, it was something that was much needed.”

The transfer station was closed for three months for the expansion project, but is now up and running once again.

Robinson said the decision to expand came from conversations with Lafayette County officials and Three Rivers Solid Waste Management. Three Rivers paid more than $350,000 for the project, which will accommodate tons of trash and make trash collection in the LOU Community operate more efficiently, Robinson said.

The expansion added 40,000 square feet to the original 25,000-square-foot facility, growing to match the ever-increasing population.

“The county, city and the university all dump their trash at this transfer station on Pea Ridge Road,” Robinson said. “Then what happens is, the trash gets pushed through a chute and into an 18-wheeler, which then gets hauled to the Three Rivers Pontotoc landfill. We don’t actually have an active landfill in Oxford, we just have the transfer station.”

When she assumed the role of recycling coordinator three years ago, Robinson said the transfer station saw between 10 and 12 18-wheelers’ worth of trash come through its doors. Since then, she said it’s not uncommon to collect 15 to 20 truckloads of garbage.

The Oxford transfer station is open to the public from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Household trash can be dropped off in the event that a collection day is missed or if a resident collects excess trash between pickup days. Also on-site is the recycling center, where residents can deposit plastic, aluminum and steel cans, paper products, newspaper and cardboard. There’s also a rubbish site, where people can bring furniture, lumber, building materials and yard debris.

For more information, visit http://oxfordms.net/departments/environmental-services or call (662) 232-2359.