Connie Wiggins had to take a minute to find the right words.

Sitting in the Lawrenceville office of Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful on Wednesday morning, the executive director was thinking back to last week's fire and all that's happened since.

Kimberly Smith/AJC (ENLARGE)

Attendant Steve Moore says there has been a noticeable uptick in the amount of recycling received as people who normally use the Satellite Boulevard recycling center take their items to the recycling center where he works, on Marigold Road in Snellville.

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It was just a week ago that she watched 22 years of history go up in smoke.

While firefighters battled the flames at the Recycling Bank of Gwinnett on Satellite Boulevard in Duluth the night of June 25, and friends and neighbors showed up to see if there was anything they could do, Wiggins and five of her staff members were already pondering what they'd have to do to get back in business.

By 10 a.m. the next day (June 26), Wiggins said, they'd lined up a temporary site in Lawrenceville, thanks to Gwinnett County Schools.

By 11 a.m. Tuesday, they were ready to resume receiving curb-side recycling from Gwinnett's residents, the bulk of the recycling center's business.

It's a start, Wiggins said.

They can't process anything at the temporary site. Materials are transported elsewhere in the metro area and beyond. But more than one person has told Wiggins the speed at which business was resumed is not just quicker than a private company could have managed — it's a testament to the network her group has built over a generation.

"I'm kind of in awe of the support and how quickly things happened," Wiggins said. "But the thing people don't realize is when Gwinnettians set their minds to do something, there is no way they won't exceed what's expected of them."

Especially when it comes to restoring a place that's been at the heart of local recycling efforts since 1986.

Though the losses estimated at $5 million to $6 million are high — three buildings totaling 25,000 square feet of space; equipment, including Bobcats, forklifts and machines that move and crush recyclables — they are not the whole story.

Because so many helped fast-track the rebuilding effort, Wiggins said, she hopes to have a new Recycling Bank of Gwinnett built and open for business at the Satellite Boulevard location "120 days from next Friday."

For the time being, she's asking the community to refrain from leaving anything at the Satellite Boulevard site — it only hinders the recovery effort.

Instead, she said, folks should check out the extensive GC&B Web site — www.gwinnettcb.org — which lists where to recycle what, indexed by type of material and ZIP code.

That's what brought Patty Kosolapoff of Norcross to the Snellville Recycling Center on Wednesday afternoon. An employee of the Lilburn Cooperative Ministry, she pulled up in a car stuffed with flattened boxes.

"We get so many donations in cardboard boxes," she said, "it builds up."

Kosolapoff said she visited the Duluth site two or three times a week, and chose Snellville as a substitute because it's "not too far."

Duluth's loss has been Snellville's gain: Business is up at least 10 percent, staffers say.

By fall of 2009, Wiggins said, an even larger recycling center will be built in the eastern part of the county — near the Ga. 316 / I-985 corridor — though she couldn't say where, since negotiations are still under way.

"We get labeled as a community of sprawl," Wiggins said. "But Gwinnett County has always been about taking care of our natural resources." That includes everything from protecting green space and streams, she said, offering recycling back in the '80s and making conservation part of the curriculum at county schools.

When it comes to regulars at the old site, Wiggins said there's one group she hopes won't find other places to recycle.

More than 250 community groups — Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, churches — collect cans and papers as part of their fund-raising efforts. If they can hang on to their materials until November, Wiggins said, she'd like them to be part of "some sort of wonderful celebration" to christen the new place. And maybe even earn some bonus money in the process.