Once upon a time Natchez touted its past with a nostalgic motto: Where the old South still lives.

Through the years, that motto’s use has waned, fortunately. The old phrase faded as times and people change.

Today, while Natchez still celebrates its amazing past, we also need to constantly look to the future. We need to focus not solely on where we have been, but on where we’re going.

Our area’s incredible history and preserved components of it are extremely important, but in one key, quality of life aspect, Natchez remains largely stuck in the past too, and in not such a good way.

While countless other communities have embraced community-recycling programs, our area has virtually none.

We cast off bags filled with trash like the fictional character Scarlett O’Hara casted off suitors in the opening minutes of the film version of “Gone with the Wind.”

Our attitude toward the mountains of garbage — at least some of which can and should be recycled — seems to mimic O’Hara too.

Fiddle-dee-dee, it’s just another million pounds of garbage.

Perhaps there’s no better town than Natchez to truly step out front and lead, not just the Miss-Lou, but all of Southwest Mississippi, on making recycling a priority.

Until we join forces and drive this into a reality, Natchez’s early motto is still fitting, with one slight addition: Where the old South still lives and the recyclable material still gets buried.