A comprehensive opportunity to recycle without leaving town will return to Chardon May 20. The first – in what is expected to be a recurring community collection event – will be hosted in the Chadron Eagle newspaper’s lot downtown (248 West 2nd St.) from 9 a.m. to noon that Saturday. Area residents are encouraged to bring bagged/sorted recyclables, which will be transported to the Keep Alliance Beautiful (KAB) Recycling Center.
Interest in resuming public recycling services has simmered the past three years as Chadron, Crawford and others along the Pine Ridge have instead driven as far as Alliance and Rapid City, S.D. SWANN (Solid Waste Agency of NW Nebraska) removed roll-off containers during the Covid 19 Pandemic. Currently, there remain programs in Chadron to collect corrugated cardboard and white/office paper.
A Chadron State College student’s concern proved to be the missing catalyst to seriously address hometown recycling. A few weeks ago, Joe Talley of Vermillion, S.D., met with Keep Chadron Beautiful (KCB) Director Susan Hucke and KAB Executive Director Kathy Worley in Alliance. Discussion led to setting what would be a packed public meeting in Chadron April 25. As Worley explained at the onset, KAB would process whatever material arrived though collection and transportation would be Chadron’s responsibility. Hucke opened by thanking everyone (nearly 50 people filled the space) for attending and Platte Valley Companies for the room. This is “all about bringing recycling back to Chadron,” she said. “Thank you, thank you Keep Alliance Beautiful because they can accept our recycling.”
Equivalent to 1 percent of the town’s population, residents in attendance ranged from a baby to seniors with about a third of the audience under 50 years old. People were quick to volunteer as Worley began listing priorities. Mark Dykes, managing editor of The Record, offered the open lot east of the newspaper building. Hucke noted KCB has a big trailer that could be parked there. A woman sitting near the front also pledged a trailer. The college could potentially help with logistics. Talley said CSC “has pickups going back and forth to Alliance all day.”
“I’m a recycler,” a man proclaimed, noting he has hauled to Denver for 16 years, before saying he would lend the use of a baler that makes 25-pound bricks from aluminum cans. KCB staff gathered offers of assistance on a clipboard.
Throughout the 70-minute meeting, attendees debated the merits of collection methods. The group dismissed leaving an unattended trailer in favor of an advertised, staffed event that would be open to the public. At least one person observed that CSC has (or at least has offered in the past) its own trailers on campus. Hucke countered, “Who collects it? Keep Chadron Beautiful doesn’t collect it because it’s full of trash . . . these are the (realities) of recycling. We are here because you all want recycling.”
Keep Alliance Beautiful wants to incorporate Chadron into northwest Nebraska’s “hub and spoke” system wherein recyclers feed collection points which feed recycling centers. Alliance sends much of its baled and sorted materials to Western Resources Group in Ogallala, which, in turn feeds major hubs, such as Omaha. Chadron’s potential flow will be handled by the KAB center’s regular staff and volunteers.
There was no overt opposition to resuming recycling, at the Chadron meeting. However, an audience member did help flesh out details, including questioning whether it would be wise to spend time and fuel to recycle in Alliance. A man who has been collecting the community’s cardboard lamented how 20 tons “of cardboard are sitting at the dump now. We have no place to take this stuff and it’s rotting.”
Like questions of a collection site and transport, people quickly brainstormed ways to secure funding, especially to pay for fuel costs initially. Though two Keep America Beautiful affiliates
facilitated the meeting, the vision to craft a recycling collection system that will fit the Chadron area is being owned early on by the people themselves.
For information on the May 20 collection event, contact Hucke at 153 Bordeaux St., Chadron, NE 69337; 308-432-3805; www.keepchadronbeautiful.org.