Councilmen Robert Craft and Steve Jones offered a video presentation on Creative Outdoor Advertising at Monday’s Gulf City Council work session.

The advertising could offset the cost of placing recycling bins strategically throughout the Island, and collection of materials dropped off at the locations.

Jones believes that the outdoor advertising is simply one of several ways to make the prospect of adding recycling more attractive to vendors.

“This type of task is very cumbersome and would require significant financial risk of a vendor,” Jones said. “We’re looking at ways to reduce some of that risk so that a vendor will want to step forward and take on this service.”

He added that because the task is so large, Gulf Shores has also worked with Orange Beach to make the project island-wide.

“Another way to make this project worthwhile for a vendor is for us to align with Orange Beach so that there is more participation than what each of us could do alone.”

Craft believes an effective recycling program will have a great impact on the city. “We’ve been convinced that cities that recycle and focus on the importance of recycling tend to have less trash thrown out on the street,” Craft said.

Jones said the effort has been in the works for nearly six months. Support from citizens can be found in the results of the city’s recent phone survey where 87 percent of the 410 respondents said that the city should continue to provide comprehensive recycling.

“There is definitely more information to come but we want to make public that efforts are underway to further recycling within the city of Gulf Shores,” Jones said.