NATCHEZ — The lifespan of a piece of paper can be quite brief.

An office memo is read and trashed. A page is ripped from a notebook and made into a balled-up schoolyard missile. An unread brochure is tossed without a second thought.

But in Natchez and Adams County, what used to end up in the trash will make it back to desktops, copiers and notebooks across the world.

As recycle bins are delivered to county and municipal buildings within the coming weeks, there is no longer a reason to trash all that paper.

The Green Alliance, a nonprofit group that exists under the umbrella of the Community Alliance, received about 70, 22-gallon recycling bins from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.

With local schools including Cathedral, Trinity, Adams County Christian and Frazier Primary already successfully using recycle bins of their own, the Green Alliance is anxious to see how the recycling program will work in municipal buildings.

Mississippi River Pulp will collect the paper and recycle it.

“What will come here is office waste,” said Tanya Smith Richardson, vice president of process engineering and product development at Mississippi River Pulp. “Picture the top of your desk — copy paper, file folders, anything like that, we can recycle.”

Steve McNerney, who heads up the Green Alliance, said he expects a significant amount of paper will be recycled through the program.

“Almost all of our city buildings will have one recycling bin if not more,” McNerney said.

A few bins have already been distributed, and McNerney said the rest will end up at City Hall, the tax collector’s office, the city clerk’s office, fire department, library and more.

A bin at City Engineer David Gardner’s office unit is already filling up with what would have been trashed.

“We can fill this up in an afternoon,” said Meg Freeman, assistant to the city engineer. “This is a great starting point for the program.”

At a previous meeting of the Community Alliance, Gardner said the program is a test of sorts.

“This is a start,” Gardner said. “It may grow into something larger.”

McNerney said talk of starting a recycling program in Natchez began four or five years ago. The talks were not really productive, but one business, Natchez Metals and Recycling, got a hold of some bins and they filled up fast.

“Bubba Kaiser had a couple of bins the county had lent him from a previous recycling attempt,” McNerney said. “To everyone’s amazement, especially Bubba’s, the bins kept filling up and up — it almost became a nuisance to him.”

McNerney said the Green Alliance wanted to keep that success alive.

“We met on a somewhat regular basis, and asked ourselves, how can we make an impact?” McNerney said. “How can we bring recycling to Natchez?”

McNerney said around the time the Green Alliance was accepted as one of the Community Alliance’s non-profit organizations, Gardner made him aware of the recycling grant from MDEQ.

McNerney’s van was packed with the hunter green recycling bins Monday.

He said he finds it interesting that Mississippi River Pulp is located in a place where recycling is not necessarily a priority.

“We all talk about recycling,” McNerney said. “But here we have a significant green industry in a desert wasteland of non-recycling.”

Richardson said the paper can be weighed as it is brought in, and the company can keep a tally on how much office waste is generated through the program.

She said they don’t know yet how often Mississippi River Pulp employees will empty the bins.

“It depends on what the generation is, so we’ll see once we get started. It might be once a week, it might be every other week.”

Richardson said the process for recycling the office waste is like doing laundry.

“It’s like a giant washing machine, and all the paper goes into it,” Richardson said. “We take out all of the inks and adhesives, and what’s left is pure, white pulp. The pulp then gets sold back to the papermakers.”

McNerney said recycling is fast becoming a national and international commodity.

“How do we make a better environment to live in?” McNerney asked. “What comes to mind is recycling, which leads to other ways to make the environment better for all of us.”