By JOHN E. WEARE
KAB
A farmer called me last week to find out if he could bring a load of chemical jugs with their respective boxes to the Keep Alliance Beautiful Recycling Center. I said he sure could as we reviewed how they needed to be rinsed out with clean cardboard as well. We separated plastic from cardboard on his first trip, followed by a second Friday, with neither material waiting long for the balers.
Around mid-summer we begin to see more chemical (herbicide, etc.) jugs delivered to the recycling center as growers have time to gather and clean them – triple rinsed with holes punched being the correct procedure. A pickup or trailer load of jugs could have just as easily gone to the Alliance landfill. They are illegal to burn.
People from the country, both Box Butte County and as long as an hour’s drive away, routinely recycle at our facility in Alliance. However, I feel that not enough farmers and ranchers know recycling is a viable option for their operation. The Box Butte County Commissioners have been generous in their funding of KAB and we want our rural neighbors to know we offer services beyond Alliance and Hemingford. In addition to trailers in both communities and the recycling center (open 8-3 Monday-Friday, hours may vary due to weather or holidays) KAB provides used IBC totes upon request. We work with rural residents who take advantage of this service to coordinate a pickup schedule or if they are willing to bring in the container when it’s full. KAB accepts No. 1-7 plastics with milk jugs separated and baled separately, corrugated and paperboard cardboard, glass containers, tin/steel cans and small scrap metal, electronics, mixed paper (including newspaper, office paper, phonebooks, magazines, junkmail) and aluminum cans. We also accept lick tubs, woven plastic grain/feed bags and plastic grain storage bags though the last category can be challenging depending on cleanliness and volume of the material.
Why should someone from the country recycle a pickup load worth of material when they could just throw it in the dumpster/haul it to the landfill or incinerate it?
Anything not recycled, that could be, takes up space in the landfill whether it comes from the country or in town. Scottsbluff and Gering are among the communities in Northwest Nebraska that have filled their landfill and are looking for a new destination for their trash.
At the Box Butte County Fair a Chadron business was selling The Eradicator, a heavy-duty steel incinerator that comes in two sizes. This trash burner is designed to replace the venerable burn barrels my brothers and I grew up with at home and country school with way less ash. It also keeps embers contained – important in drought conditions. A call to the business for more information was not immediately returned. So, safety over barrels is a plus even though air pollution is created.
Nick Hinman, fire apparatus engineer/EMT, at the Alliance Volunteer Fire Department said that the City of Alliance allows firepits but not incineration of trash which could bring a potential increase in dumpster fires “The problem is what things are we releasing into the air?” He explained that the AVFD even has to clear training burns with the Nebraska Department of Water, Energy, and Environment.
The trip to Alliance is worth it to recycle. Contact us at 308-762-1729 for information.