First week of January and just about everyone is glad to bid 2020 goodbye. In many ways this seems like any other start to the New Year: the children are back in school, the holiday goodies are almost gone and the Christmas tree has been set on the curb and picked up by the City crews. A feeling of optimism is palpable as America looks forward to 2021. Like any other year, there will be resolutions as people attempt to improve themselves and bring about positive change in their lives. For people who have broken all their resolutions already, or want to add another, I suggest recycling.
New Year’s resolutions are known for being idealistic while notoriously difficult to keep. Perhaps a man who never exercises pledges to run a marathon before the year’s out. Possible though not likely. A promise to walk a half hour a day is much more doable. My suggestion is really two resolutions: to start recycling for people who never have, or increase recycling for people who include the practice already in their daily lives. Whether you fall in the first category or the second this resolution is attainable.
Let’s back up a step. New Year’s resolutions are usually the means to achieve a personal benefit. Recycling as a resolution, rather, helps others. Fewer natural resources go into products we all use and there is less trash going into the landfill, for example. So, a person must first view recycling as positive and worth their time before embracing it as a goal for the upcoming year.
Jim has been hearing about recycling from his son, an elementary student, and decides to give it a try. What and how are two main questions. What has he been throwing away that could have been recycled? There are numerous items in the family’s trash that could be recycled, however a quick check shows plastic pop bottles take up a lot of room. Jim’s son offers to help and they take a bag of 20-ounce bottles down to the Keep Alliance Beautiful trailers at Second and Cheyenne in Alliance. The boy volunteers to help with the bottles every week. Soon they notice less trash and as the months go by add new categories of recyclables to remove for the trailers.
A resolution to start recycling this year may become a goal to expand your personal, household or business recycling the next Jan. 1. I would examine what is currently recycled and what else that ends up in your waste stream could be. Plastic water bottles could be the majority of a family’s recycling each week because the number of bottles used and there is no cleaning required. However, if members of that household would commit to a few minutes of cleanup their container for KAB could include tin cans, milk cartons and paperboard boxes. A small investment of time could easily double or triple the amount of recycling from a home that has just started the practice.
I applaud anyone who plans to start or expand recycling as a resolution for 2021. At KAB we want to make this goal attainable. Materials accepted include: cardboard, paperboard, white/office paper, bagged shredded paper, tin and steel cans, aluminum cans, glass bottles and containers, plastic (Nos. 1-7), magazines, newspapers, milk jugs, batteries and plastic bags and other Hefty Energy Bag plastics. The public can visit our trailers in Alliance at Second and Cheyenne or behind Pizza Hut and Dollar General on Flack Ave. or west of the Farmer’s Co-op Elevator in Hemingford. We offer curbside pickup every two weeks as a subscription service. The recycling center is open 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday at 107 ½ Cheyenne. For information call the center at 763-1410 or the office at 762-1729.