Keep Alliance Beautiful and the City of Alliance are partnering to offer a pilot program for curbside recycling that will reward participants who sort their materials with a refund on their utility bill.
The more we recycle, the less unnecessary material goes into the landfill. That helps extend the life of the landfill and, over time, helps reduce costs that would otherwise be borne by Alliance refuse customers.
“Keep Alliance Beautiful is doing important work that directly benefits our residents,” City manager J.D. Cox said. “Every recyclable item that stays out of the landfill preserves valuable landfill space and helps us delay future costs associated with expanding or replacing that capacity. This pilot is a great example of the City and KAB working together on a practical solution that rewards participation while helping protect the pocketbooks of Alliance refuse customers.”
“Sorting recyclables streamlines the process at the KAB Recycling Center,” KAB Executive Director John E. Weare explained, “Without the necessity of labor-intensive hand sorting we are able to increase the overall volume of material processed and shipped from our facility that could have ended up in the landfill. Sorting on the front end adds relatively little time to the process, yet benefits us greatly.”
Keep Alliance Beautiful’s two current curbside options (a paid subscription model and a free service for seniors and people with mobility issues) allow “single-stream” recycling, where everything can be mixed together. The pilot program will charge $120 up front for the year and will require materials to be clean, dry and sorted. Participants who meet that expectation will be given a $5 credit on each pickup with a potential for the entire cost to be deducted from their utility bill at the end of the year. Each household will receive a 55-60 gallon green bag (and labels) from KAB to fill with smaller bags they provide for accepted materials: milk jugs and opaque No. 2 plastics; Nos. 1-7 plastics; tin/steel and heavy aluminum cans; aluminum beverage cans; mixed (including shredded) paper; small cardboard and paperboard; household batteries and small electronics; and Hefty energy plastics. Larger, broken down corrugated cardboard may be piled with the bag.
Though not all refuse is recyclable, a much larger percentage of what local residents throw away could be taken to KAB. City Public Works Director Ross Grant commented, “The maintenance and long-term life of the Alliance Municipal Landfill are essential to our community’s well-being. Over the past decade, I have seen how recycling reduces the amount of waste entering the landfill, which directly helps extend the life of this important public facility. Expanding recycling efforts in Alliance gives every resident a practical way to help protect the environment, support responsible waste management, and contribute to the long-term prosperity of our community.”
The first 50 people will be included in the pilot program on a first-come, first served basis. Pick up will start the first week of October with further details to be announced. For information or to sign up contact Keep Alliance Beautiful at 308-762-1729 or keepalliancebeautiful@gmail.com.