Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
No Matter Their Number, Plastic Containers Important To Recycling
Kimball area residents are quite familiar with this door, where they deposit used plastic containers at the community's recycling center.
Marlene Walker is dedicated to Kimball and its recycling program.
Recycling Resolutions for the New Year 2021 are simple to participate in and give you a feel good moment, when you recycle you are saving landfill space and preserving precious natural resources. The first recycling resolution in this series of articles was the recycling of cardboard, which is considered the easiest and most lucrative of products. Next, Recycling Resolution #2 is to keep those plastics out of the landfill.
Kimball Recycling Center, which is a program of Keep Kimball Beautiful, take plastics 1-7 which includes milk jugs, pop bottles (even single use pop bottles), water bottles, ketchup and salad dressing bottles and other food containers. The number of the plastic is located on the bottom of the container inside of a triangle.
Kimball Recycling Center has unique self-serve windows which are open 24 hours a day. Each window has a description of the plastic container on it. Most all of what is considered household plastic is recyclable. These single use containers can be taken to the recycling center or put into the 374 recycling bins in alleys throughout Kimball, Dix and Bushnell.
According to Spud Rowley, Executive Director of Keep Kimball Beautiful, plastics 1-7 are hauled to First Star Fiber in Omaha to be made into another product for consumption. Those plastics are either turned into a composite wood fencing product or to a biofuel product.
Keep Kimball Beautiful is a C-3 Corporation affiliated with Keep Nebraska Beautiful. Keep Kimball Beautiful applies for the grants while the programs under KKB – which include recycling, public education, waste reduction and the alley bins – receive the grant money along with matching funds.
Rowley has been with the program for 10 years, but board member Marlene Walker has been a member of the board since its inception. To the best of everyone's recollection Keep Kimball Beautiful was begun in 1985 and Marlene has been on the board 35 years.
Marlene said that the recycling "started so small" and now they "take absolutely everything." She also sings the praises of Rowley: "Spud has done a marvelous job and has great ideas." She noted that Spud had the foresight to purchase the crusher from Shopko.
Marlene, soon to be 87, lives alone with her two dogs. She describes herself this way: "God put a spring in my butt." Never one to sit still, Marlene delivers groceries and mail to a few people, then she picks up their recycling and takes it to the center after sorting it.
Board member Marlene Walker is truly dedicated to Kimball and recycling program.