It’s getting easier for Fremonters to be green
Going Green means a lot of different things to different people and organizations. At Keep Fremont Beautiful we encourage people to go green by improving their waste handling practices. We encourage people to put their trash in a trash container with a tight fitting lid. The tight fitting lid keeps the garbage from blowing in the wind and becoming litter. So that’s a pretty easy way to “go green.”
Another easy way to go green is to put a litter bag in your car and use it. People who throw litter from a vehicle are littering, polluting and risking a $500 fine if caught. Making sure your garbage doesn’t become litter is the first step in handling your waste properly.
Next comes recycling. Most of your household or business waste is recyclable — so now we ask you to go even greener and start sorting your recyclables from your other trashy trash. Plastic, tin, newspaper, office paper, aluminum and cardboard can all be easily recycled by taking those items to the Waste Connections Recycling Facility at 1200 Hamilton or to the collection bins behind the Hy-Vee Gas Station.
And as you probably know, Curbside Recycling with Curbside Rewards is coming to Fremont and then recycling will be even easier. I’ve already signed up for the service and I am excited to have the convenience of curbside recycling at my home. The service costs just $9.99 a month and you earn points for every pound of recycled material — which is very cool. You can redeem the points for coupons and special offers or you can donate your points, in the form of cash, to your favorite charity.
Recycling is “Green” because it reduces the amount of waste going to the landfill, it reduces litter and it saves energy — and saving energy is definitely green!
Besides our regular trash that has to be landfilled and our recyclables that need to be separated, there are lots of specialty wastes that need to be handled in very specific ways. Let’s consider paint. You may either save your paint for special collection events or you may dry out your paint with kitty litter and then dispose of it in the trash.
Medicines are another specialty waste. It used to be that you were told to flush old medicines down the toilet. But experts determined that flushing medicines wasn’t such a good disposal idea when they started showing up in water supplies — that is so not green. Now we are encouraging you to destroy your old pharmaceuticals by pouring flour or dirt in the liquids and pouring glue in with the pills, then we ask you to tape the bottles shut and place in the regular trash.
Then there are the new compact fluorescent light bulbs that are great at reducing energy but contain slight amounts of mercury. We have a bin at the KFB Office for the collection of these small light bulbs. Just put the burnt out bulb in a zip lock bag and bring it to the City Auditorium during regular business hours.
That brings me to tires. Back in the day when a tire was worn-out, you simply buried it in a landfill. That didn’t work out so well — the tires didn’t always stay buried. Over time, the tires would work their way up to the surface — damaging liner covers and causing increased leachate which could then contaminate groundwater.The worn-out, but still intact tires, could also collect methane gas from the decomposing waste in the landfill — creating potential fire hazards.
So for proper disposal of worn tires, the Keep Fremont Beautiful Committee and the City of Fremont will be hosting a “Scrap Tire Amnesty” event on Oct. 10. The event will be held at Christensen Field in the west parking lot from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tires will be accepted at no charge to the participant. All tires must be removed from the rim and you will have to help unload your vehicle — although workers will be on hand to provide assistance.
KFB was awarded a Grant from the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality to fund the tire collection and processing fees. The scrap tires will be transported to the Butler County Landfill and then shredded into chips. Instead of simply burying those tire chips with all the other waste, they will be used as an alternative cover/drainage layer. This combination cover and drainage layer prevents water from percolating through the waste (creating leachate) and contaminating the groundwater.
I’ve only covered a few of the specialty wastes that are generated at our homes and businesses. If you have any questions regarding proper disposal techniques, please call KFB at 727-2808 and we will provide you with the “Greenest” information.
Sue Reyzlik is executive director of Keep Fremont Beautiful.
