South Carolina officials announced today that a new "Recycle Here SC" app is available to help state residents access recycling tips from their phones.

The app is free for mobile users and will provide information about recycling centers near them, including hours of operation, what types of recycled items are accepted and contact information.

Lt. Gov. Pamela Evetter and Interim Director of the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services Myra Reece announced the app on Nov. 15, which is America Recycles Day. SCDES partnered with Palmetto Pride and the S.C. Beverage Association to launch the new app.

"This app is one of the first of its kind in the nation, and will provide easy access to recycling information for our residents all across the state...information such as a list of every recycling program in the state, the what, the where and how to recycle, along with contact information and updates on special recycling events, waste reduction tips and much more," Reece said during a news conference at the statehouse. "In short, it's really a one stop shop for all things recycling."

Reece said there are 69 curbside programs across the state, along with more than 500 drop-off locations. She said she hopes the app will help reduce some of the practices that make it difficult to recycle well in the state.

"I really believe the Recycle Here SC app is going to be a game changer for recycling in South Carolina. The easy-to-use Recycle Here SC app directly addresses one of the primary obstacles to improving recycling, not only in South Carolina, but nationwide," Reece said. "Many of our residents, our friends, our family, our neighbors, may be unsure about what items should be recycled, leading them to putting non-recyclable materials in the recycling bins, which then contaminates recyclable materials and renders that entire batch unusable."

Contamination is an issue recycling advocates throughout the state have been fighting. Greenville County stopped recycling glass because it contaminated the rest of the materials and damaged machines, along with several other Upstate counties. Recycled items that are dropped off in trash bags will not be opened because they could cause danger for workers, meaning the whole bag gets thrown away. Plastic bags are only accepted in specific locations, like at grocery stores because they can get tangled in machinery, so they can't be collected with normal recyclable items.

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Evette said she believes sustainability and profitability are "not mutually exclusive."

"My dad always had a great saying: 'You can hit people two ways — you can hit them in their heart, or you can hit them in their pocketbook,'" Evette said. "That is the approach I've taken, to not only keeping South Carolina litter-free, but to working out recycling."

Evette said that residents taking on recycling makes a huge dent in how much it costs the state to operate the programs.

"Everybody takes part in keeping their areas clean. Pickup costs a lot of money for the state and the local levels. So when everybody pitches in, it creates a huge difference in cost," Evette said.

Sarah Lyles, the executive director of Palmetto Pride, underscored that the success of recycling and waste prevention is tied to accessibility.

"Litter prevention and recycling go hand in hand. We wanted to make sure that everyone has a place to put their waste," Lyles said. We have a lot of people in South Carolina and we need better infrastructure, and that infrastructure is the trash cans and recycling containers."

Lyles said the app will help make recycling less daunting.

"In order to make the system better, in order to have better collection and better materials, we have to make it more accessible and we have to make it easy for people, and this app is going to do that.

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that Greenville County would receive a $393,510 grant as part of the E nergy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program to help steer the county back to single-stream recycling in hopes of making the process more efficient. Currently, the county operates on a dual-stream system, meaning residents separate certain things from other materials. Returning to single-stream recycling would mean residents would put all their recyclable material in one place. The grant also includes fiber compactor units.

The Recycle Here SC app can be found on the App Store or Google Play. More information is available on the SCDES website .