NATCHEZ — Eighty-four-year-old Freddie Johnson has lived in Natchez nearly 60 years, but there is one thing she was never able to do until Wednesday.

The Laird Street resident was one of 1,023 city residents who filled her blue recycling bin full of newspapers, plastic bottles, soda cans and other items for the first day of curbside recycling pickup.

“It was my very first time recycling,” Johnson said. “I was really excited.”

Johnson has been saving up her water bottles, newspapers and milk jugs since first learning the city would be offering curbside recycling. Laird says she is happy to contribute to helping Natchez reduce and reuse its trash.

“I have a lot of newspapers, and I hate to just put them in trash after I am done reading them,” she said. “I am glad they can be used for something.”

Johnson said she is also pleased that her recycling will be benefiting a local business, Concordia Metal.

“I don’t know how much money they are making off it, but I guess every little bit helps,” she said.

Concordia Metal employee and Green Alliance Chairman Jim Smith said the company would not immediately profit from collecting the recyclables.

He said, though, the idea is to make it into a profitable, business, which will depend on how successful curbside recycling is in Natchez.

Concordia Metal collected six tons of recycled items Wednesday.

Waste Pro Division Manager Doug Atkins said with approximately 17 percent of the city’s 6,000 residents recycling on the first day of pickup, he is optimistic about increased participation. The magic number for a successful program, Atkins said, is 30-40 percent.

“It was a good first day,” he said. “The tonnage was actually more than I expected.”

The only issue Waste Pro ran into during pickup, Atkins said, was that residents put their recyclables in their green trashcans. Drivers are trained only to stop to pickup blue bins on recycle day, Atkins said.

Atkins also asks that residents remember not to individually bag their recyclable items, and he encourages those who did not participate Wednesday to save some items for next week.

Park Place resident Cindy Etheridge said she was excited for the first day of recycling and plans to continue recycling. Etheridge said she has been stockpiling recyclable items to put in her bin.

“I had so much saved, I had too much,” she said. “I’ll have to put some of it out next week.”

Etheridge said she is happy Natchez finally has curbside recycling.

“My daughter lives in Oxford, and they have been doing it up there for a while, and I’ve always been envious,” she said.

South Union Street resident Terry McCuan said he is happy he will no longer have to drop off his recycling at Concordia Metal. McCuan has been recycling for years and moved from Spain, where he said recycling bins are placed on street corners.

“I am just very glad we have curbside now,” he said. “It’s a very good thing.”