In the midst of the chest-beating exclamations and accusations that fly like so many tissues in the wind when large municipal and county budgets are discussed, people sometimes forget the smaller communities. Officials operate on much tighter budgets, yet they face the same issues as their bigger brothers and sisters: taxes, services and increased costs for those services.

One such case is Honea Path, where on Monday night Town Council members approached a problem and found a practical solution that will have long-range benefits.

In mid-April, Mayor Lollis Meyers announced that the company picking up the town’s recyclable materials no longer would perform that service. It had become too costly for the company, he said, due much in part to increased fuel costs. Separating items for recycling also was becoming more time-consuming, Meyers added, saying the company reported that employees were finding “shoes and pieces of carpet” mixed in with the plastics and cans.

Yet the council didn’t just give up on efforts to improve the community’s landscape. Approximately one week after the announcement that recycling was on hold, the town decided to replace SP Recycling bins with a container for recyclables, to recycle a large container already in use for general trash. The town, our report of April 23 said, “will find a way” to get the materials to a county convenience center.

But Meyers announced at Monday’s meeting that after his discussions with Anderson County Administrator Joey Preston, the county will place a recycling bin in Honea Path and the county will arrange to have it hauled away, according to our Tuesday report.

The area will be fenced and manned during the day, and council members will have the area paved for residents’ ease. But it will take residents’ concern and cooperation to make the effort work. This isn’t curbside, which is more convenient, yet it is a workable solution. It just takes a little more work on the part of residents.

Is it worth the extra effort? Apparently Honea Path residents and council members believe it is.

During April, residents participated in the town’s annual Cleanup Week. Council member Sonny Davis said last month that roughly 80 percent of the streets were “adopted” by residents and other volunteers. Davis expected 2,400 pounds of trash to have been picked up by the weeklong event’s end.

Litter and recycling might not be hot-button issues, but they are issues of quality of life, health and community pride. It is admirable that Honea Path’s council sees them as such. And it also is admirable that Anderson County agrees.