Keep Alliance Beautiful accepts recycling 24/7 from the public through a collection of trailers here in town as well as behind the Police Station in Hemingford. A week or so ago, we parked an additional trailer on the north end of the lot at Second and Cheyenne. A white, two-horse trailer now sits just west of the green trailer. The latter has collected flattened cardboard for years and will be supplemented, for now, by its new neighbor.
Grant funds awarded earlier this year have allowed KAB to shop for an another trailer or two as we strive to serve our local communities. Instead of spending many more thousands of dollars for new versions of our larger trailers the strategy has been to find quality used trailers that fill niches we’ve identified. My vision for our two-axle covered trailer is to park it alongside the 10-compartment Alleycat behind the former Pizza Hut along Flack Ave. This location has relatively little capacity for corrugated cardboard. By increasing available room I believe more people will recycle that material, when (upon finding the only bin stuffed full) they would not have wanted to haul it to the cardboard trailer/recycling center. Similarly, over the first weekend we parked the horse trailer, recyclers took the opportunity to fill it as the green trailer reached its limit. Upon arriving Monday there was no cardboard to pick up off the ground – an improvement over typical busy weekends.
There will be some prep before the mid-size cardboard collector goes over to Flack or anywhere else. However, I’m excited to augment our services. Trailers are one of the most efficient ways to gather large volumes of material from the public and businesses. Each one available to the community at large is clearly marked as to what goes where and our guidelines such as no items in plastic bags. So, for example, a bin filled only with loose aluminum cans may be dumped within a few seconds – no sorting needed. That almost never happens, though most people try to put everything where it belongs. Anytime there is a tote for overflow we inevitably spend much more time dealing with a hodgepodge than going through an average trailer container.
Each material, occasion and location dictates the size and type of trailers KAB provides. There must be enough capacity that the frequency at which we process them fits into our schedule. Box Butte General Hospital is a prime example. Tuesday morning has been the hospital’s slot for years. We know what resources are necessary to empty and return it in a timely manner. Two businesses along West Third Street produce enough cardboard that our typical totes are not the best option. Each location benefits from a KAB trailer large enough to accommodate a week’s worth of recycling.
Businesses can be more predictable than the public. At times it can be a challenge to keep up with demand with two trailers on our lot: the 14-compartment Alleycat holding No. 1-7 and milk jugs and the paperboard and aluminum cans in the 10-compartment trailer next to it. If either trailer is full, or close to it, we encourage patrons to brings bags they would have dumped there to our front door on the south side of the building during business hours: 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Also, for aluminum cans there is a tote along the alley next to the green cardboard trailer
Capacity and convenience fuel recycling.Trailers offer a low-tech resource to funnel hundreds of tons of material through the KAB recycling center on the way to close the loop instead of filling the landfill quicker. We plan to make the best use of our “fleet” and ponder where another asset would pay dividends.