By John Weare
Keep Alliance Beautiful
First quarter Keep Alliance Beautiful recycling volume numbers are in! Our KAB patrons in Alliance, Hemingford, Box Butte County, Chadron and beyond made it possible to ship out 197,110 pounds of material during the first three months of 2024.
Nearly every quarter since writing this column I have reported on the volumes handled by our amazing crew and volunteers at the center. Importantly, numbers I cite typically represent what our hauler, Spud, transports to Kimball and Ogallala – not what the volume that we initially collect. A small percentage is either trash or nonrecyclable for our purposes. Also, volume does not count materials on hand waiting to be processed or processed but waiting for the green light to be shipped. Milk jugs have been the most prominent example of the latter this past year or so. Volumes (in pounds) for what we have recorded so far in 2024 are: Cardboard 116,323; #1-7 Plastics 10,410; Steel/Tin Cans 6,405; Aluminum Cans 3,267; Mixed Paper 29,206; Electronics 4,799; Glass 20,752; Hefty Bags 4,358; Paint 1,047; and Other 543.
Milk jugs last appeared on the KAB volumes report in 2022. That year we sent two loads to Sandhill Plastics, Inc. in Kearney: 7,560 in the first quarter and 6,470 in the fourth, totalling 14,030 pounds. A single 9,341-pound shipment made its way to their plant in 2021. KAB still accepts and separates milk jug plastic, known as natural or undyed high-density polyethylene (HDPE), from No. 1-7 plastics. In fact, there are 15 bales stacked at the recycling center averaging in the neighborhood of 650 pounds apiece. So, why wait rather than load what resembles a humongous marshmallow on the next truck?
Among the handful of materials that make money, milk jugs have been one of the most valuable. Often KAB utilizes one of its own trailers. This option has allowed us to see a profit and view the recycling process at Sandhill Plastic first hand. Also, shipments can be timed to zero out milk jug inventory based on our hauling capacity. Another option is to grow a stockpile and pay to have someone else truck a larger collection of bales. Either way, our perspective has been the time taken to sort and process natural HDPE, also a No. 2 plastic, is financially worth the effort with the bonus of knowing it goes to a Nebraska-based company to close the loop.
This past June I offered to haul the eight milk jug bales we had then. I was going to the Keep Nebraska Beautiful Conference in Kearney, just across town from their potential destination. It was ultimately decided not to be practical. We would wait for another opportunity. Days flew by. The possibility of winter weather delayed our next planned attempt until this spring, about a week ago actually. A co-worker and I were excited to see the operation at Sandhills and try our hand at the transport business, if only for a day.
Well, in accordance with the best laid plans of mice and men, what started as dozens of 4x4x4-foot boxes of milk jugs is still waiting for a ride. After the better part of a day loading and securing eight bales onto the same trailer enlisted on previous occasions the wheels shifted out of kilter when moved a few feet. Dixie returned the load to its spot the next day as the trailer reverted to its normal appearance without the weight though it will be checked/repaired before returning to duty.
A road trip may still be in the cards, yet milk jugs are a wild card at KAB. Perhaps, as the school year winds down, we will skip the field trip this time and let someone else carry the load. One way or another I will report our next milk jug volume as we still strive to hit the million-pound mark in 2024.