By John Weare, Keep Alliance Beautiful
Keep Alliance Beautiful processed and shipped a record 961,086 pounds of recyclables during 2025. While our volumes were up nearly 23 tons from the previous year (915,284) the ONE MILLION-pound mark remains elusive. However, I commend everyone who recycled through KAB and kept a small mountain of what could have been trash out of area landfills. In relation to our goal, 96 percent would be a solid “A” grade or an excellent 9.6 out of 10 rating.
Importantly, keeping track of volumes proves our patrons have continued to recycle more – building on a multi-year trend. Our million-pound goal is just that, not representative of the actual potential for recycling. It was frustrating to drive the streets during our curbside routes on the weeks following Christmas and see the roll off trash containers full of cardboard and paper.
As a Keep America Beautiful affiliate we can always be more efficient and effective, yet the real challenge is convincing more people why recycling is the better option. Cardboard (we combine corrugated and single-ply paperboard) is king at KAB. This year the material accounted for well over half (605,979 pounds) of everything by weight that left our facility. This compared to 544,865 pounds in 2024. The first and third quarters, as I mentioned in a previous column, (at 171,353 and 180,999 pounds respectively) benefited from a semi-trailer load of cardboard each. Even so, our business and residential recyclers have embraced the option to recycle their boxes with volumes ranging from 116,323 to 151,591 pounds the other six quarters for 2024-25.
While overall volume has increased that has not been the case for every category when comparing 2025 to 2024. Totals remained close in many cases and are listed in pounds with 2024 weights in parentheses.
-Plastics: 48,580 (47,355); unbaled plastic occupies the most pre-processed space other than cardboard. Crew members hand-sort bags and containers to remove dirty plastic and other contaminants as well as sort out Hefty bag materials and milk jug (undyed No. 2 High-Density Polyethylene HDPE) plastic.
-Milk jugs: 8,921 (19,605); this plastic is separated to ship to Sandhill Plastics Inc. in Kearney for manufacture in a range of custom products.
-Steel/Tin Cans: 24,316 (312,867); recycling dipped this year. The category also includes heavier aluminum such as pet food cans which are handled differently down the line than beverage containers.
-Aluminum Cans: 12,251 (12,340); these beverage cans, along with milk jugs and cardboard, are the only three categories where KAB gets paid.
-Mixed Paper: 131,068 (134,411); newspaper, magazines, junk mail, copier and office paper fit in this category while wrapping paper, brown paper and tissue paper go with paperboard/cardboard.
-Electronics: 24,046, (25,296); KAB accepts electronics (including vapes and cell phones) year-round during business hours (8 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday) at the recycling center (107 ½ Cheyenne Ave.) A $1 donation per item is requested. No large appliances or items with freon are accepted.
-Batteries: 5,185 (not available); KAB accepts any batteries smaller than a car battery. Please separate lithium ion batteries from other types.
-Glass: 74,416 (69,651); glass bottles and jars account for most of our volume. Chadron recyclers take advantage of an outlet to recycle the material through our ongoing partnership with the community. We do not accept window glass, light bulbs or ceramics.
-Hefty ReNew: 18,843 (19,146); the program to recycle pliable and other types of previously unwanted plastic (such as bottle caps and styrofoam) has stayed steady overall. Bales end up at First Star’s Solutions Plastic Lumber division in Omaha to become dimensional lumber and other products.
-Paint: 1,090 (1,047); KAB is not currently accepting paint as we attempt to give away our existing stock pile of usable paint before acquiring more.
-Car Parts; 1,060 (702); both Alliance body shops brought plastic vehicle pieces to up our total this past year.
In addition, KAB shipped 250 pounds of ink cartridges. There was no data for 2024. There are always some things that can be recycled that may not fit into a category. Spud, our intrepid hauler, took 5,081 pounds of “other” compared to 8,999 in 2024.