Recycling
Bruce Poppel has been the Environmental Officer for Wilkin County, MN for 22 years. As such his responsibilities include the recycling program. At the regular club meeting at Prante’s on October 21st he talked about the program, how it has changed and difference with other jurisdictions.
Given all that recycling does for the economy (9,000 jobs in MN directly in recycling); reducing pollution, saving electricity, water, trees and land it is perplexing that the practice of recycling is so variable. In Minnesota cities such as Breckenridge have their own program but counties have mandated and supported programs. In North Dakota recycling is available only in some cities. In Minnesota recycling employs five times the number of people employed in waste disposal and keeps much of the ton of garbage that each citizen creates each year out of landfills. It reduces greenhouse gas emission, reduces other air and water pollution and saves enough electricity to power 30 % of the state’s households. It takes 20 times more the electricity to make an aluminum soda can from mined bauxite than from recycled cans. By recycling paper in Minnesota 1 million trees and 7 billion gallons of water are saved. Aside from those statistics the environment looks better when there is a culture of recycling. Nature needs ten thousand years to degrade plastic in the environment so plastic bottles and bags remain in/on the ground for a long time.
In Wilkin County the recycling facility is open to the public two and a half days a week to recycle tin and aluminum cans; plastic bottles; glass; newspaper, corrugated cardboard, magazines, catalogs and telephone books. Mr. Poppel demonstrated how the glass is ground up and used instead of sand for sandblasting and how plastic is fragmented to that it can go on to produce weatherproof lumber, fleece and other products. Junk mail becomes cereal boxes and newspapers egg cartons. The Mall of America, WE Fest and Moon Dance Jam all have effective recycling programs.