The pile of empty containers on the table may have just looked like a pile of garbage to the students who walked into the Ironton Elementary/Middle School gymnasium Friday. But when they left, Rumpke, Inc., presenter Jonathan Kissell hoped they viewed soft drink cans and milk bottles and laundry detergent jugs with new respect.

Kissell was in Ironton Friday to promote recycling. The school now has a Lawrence-Scioto Solid Waste Management District recycling container on the back of its lot and Kissell hopes the students and their families will start recycling at home, if they don’t already.

Kissell told the students the landfills operated by his company took in more than 8 billions pounds of waste in 2010. That amount, he explained, is equal to 337,000 school buses.

“That’s enough (buses) to go from the middle school to Miami, Fla., and back with buses left over,” Kissell said. And then he pointed out that, “More than half of the waste we put in landfills can be recycled.”

Paper, Kissell said, makes up 40 percent of the waste in landfills; plastics account for 16 percent. Food waste accounts for roughly 15 percent.

Recycled plastic can be made into drain pipe; used paper can be recycled into new paper.

The solid waste management district operates 34 recycling containers at various sites throughout the county.

Recycling bins are at Lawrence County Municipal Court on County Road 1 in Chesapeake, the Perry Township Fire Department on County Road 1 in Sheridan, at Food Fair on State Route 7 in Proctorville, at Food Fair on Solida Road in South Point, at Sam’s Club in Burlington, at both stations of the Rome Township Volunteer Fire Department on State Route 7, at the Coal Grove Village Hall on Carlton Davidson Lane and at the U.S. Forestry Service office on State Route 93 in Elizabeth Township as well as the Ironton school site.

The recycling containers were moved recently from another site in Ironton. The school district agreed to put the containers at the back of the school lot; the containers will be available around the clock.