WyCo Honors America Recycles Day & Celebrates Recycling Challenge

WyCo Honors America Recycles Day & Celebrates Recycling Challenge

Published on November 15, 2024

The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas (UG) is excited to spotlight today, November 15, 2024, as America Recycles Day. Although we encourage recycling for residents throughout the entire year, today we want to spotlight the efforts and impact of recycling in our community.

2024 Recycling Challenge

In April of this year, the Unified Government Solid Waste Division partnered with community organization Re.Use.Full to launch a year-long community wide recycling challenge. During this challenge, UG staff and community members were encouraged to bring their hard to recycle plastics to one of the designated UG sites with the goal repurposing the materials into a park bench. For every thousand pounds of plastic items collected, challenge host NexTrex will repurpose the items into a community bench.

The regular waste hauler does not accept plastic film for recycling, making this project a unique opportunity for the community to recycle plastic and contribute to a sustainable initiative.

Challenge Success

Wyandotte County residents accepted the recycling challenge head on and went into full gear with much success and completed the 1,000 pounds within 5 months of the year-long expected goal.

A special thanks goes to the staff members Sharon Cook, Lori Peaches, and Steve Mortell and the entire UG Solid Waste department for their continued hard work and push to ensure this challenge was a community success. This challenge was also made a success by the great support and partnership of Re.Use.Full and challenge host NexTrex.

Throughout the challenge the Unified Government Neighborhood Resource Center collected the most plastic overall.

The bench, crafted entirely from recycled plastic, was recently installed at the Recycling and Yard Waste Center on Park Drive. Residents are encouraged to check it as you visit the Recycling and Yard Waste Center.

To keep this great recycling challenge momentum going, the Solid Waste team has begun outreach to other community organizations to encourage participation in this challenge so they, too, can create a recycled plastic bench. The team is enthusiastic to kick off the next Recycling Challenge in April 2025! Stay tuned for more details to come!

Check out these great resources from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding the benefits of recycling and what you can do to make a difference for the environment: America Recycles Day | US EPA

(Pictured below from left to right: Solid Waste staff Lori Peaches and Sharon Cook, Leslie Scott (Re.Use.Full), along with Solid Waste Director Diana Miles)

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• Trash & Recycling

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