A crowd of nearly 20 people gathered around Steve Strickler in the middle of Endurance Lift Solutions, 2702 N. State St., on a rainy Monday evening in Iola. The crowd featured several members of the Rotary Club as well as Allen County commissioners Bruce Symes, Bill King and Iola City Administrator Sid Fleming.
The topic was recycling.
The Rotary Club has long run the paper drive they collect cardboard boxes and paper once every two months and have it hauled away to be recycled. With the help of Strickler, the plan has evolved to include nearly everything recyclable.
A few weeks ago, Strickler went before the commissioners and asked for three dumpsters, one each for Humboldt, Iola and Moran, for businesses to collect their cardboard. Commissioners agreed to give $3,900 for the purchase of the three large dumpsters.
Endurance Lift Solutions is the current drop off site for the paper drive and nearly all things recyclable. On a recent Saturday, volunteers collected enough items to fill up a 52-foot trailer, double stacked.
The whole process took six hours. The idea is to turn this operation into a well-oiled machine. Workers want people to drop off their recyclable items presorted, to make the process easier.
If they can get a system in place, they want to collect items more than just once every two months.
My goal is to get this whole thing down to where five people can run it. Hopefully we can do it more than once every two months. I think that is the key to this whole thing because people do not want to fill their whole garage with plastics and paper and glass and all that kind of stuff, Strickler, who owns and runs Strickler Holstein Farm, said. And we could get rotating crews, because people dont want to have to give up a Saturday every one or two months to volunteer out here.
White paper is worth more money than colored paper. From what Strickler understands, if paper was white before it was printed on, then it counts as white paper. It needs to be separated before it gets to the drop-off site.
They (B&W) have been very good to work with. We had our first cardboard baling exercises at B&W. In six hours we took six semi loads of cardboard and made five doggone bales. So their machine does are really good job at making nice, tight bales. We have a way to collect cardboard now but we have got to figure out what to do once we get it collected. We cant depend on them for their equipment every time, Strickler said.
Each bale weighs anywhere from 800 to 1,000 pounds.
That is anywhere from 4,000 to 5,000 pounds of cardboard kept from entering landfills.
Strickler said keeping the items out of the landfill is no small feat, because it takes participation from the community, which can be a tall task when competing with landfills that take items for free.
Josh Maier, who serves as plant manager at Endurance, said they hope to make it a drive-thru of sorts, where people drive through the parking lot and hand off their presorted recyclable items to volunteers. Maier also plans on clearing out a room in the back of the facility, which comes with its own loading dock, to the group. The room will solely be used for the recycling project.
White paper, magazines, cardboard, fiberboard (cereal boxes and toothpaste boxes), No. 1 and No. 2 plastics (No. 1 is clear plastic pop bottles, No. 2 plastic is stiffer plastics such as milk jugs, detergent bottles, shampoo bottles, oil bottles and some plastic bags) and Nos. 3 through 7, as well as glass will be accepted. No. 3 plastics are plumbing pipes, gutters, etc. No. 4 plastics are squeezable condiment bottles, grocery bags, cling wrap and sandwich bags. No. 5 plastics include tupperware, margarine tubs, yogurt containers and pop bottle caps. No. 6 plastics are disposable coffee cups, packing peanuts, plastic cutlery, packing foam and food boxes. No. 7 plastics are baby bottles, plastic CD and DVD cases, large water bottle containers and exterior lighting fixtures.
