Curbside Recycling Crusade Continues
What began as a crusade for Kendall Welch in 2006 has continued to grow – although her particular crusade deals with reducing the size of our area’s landfills.
Kendall Welch, a resident of Parkville, organized a drive for curbside recycling for the Parkville and the Southern Platte County areas after moving to town and realizing there was no program in place. After making a well received presentation to the Parkville Board of Aldermen who offered her encouragement, she single-handedly helped make the program that is currently in place for Parkville today. For her efforts, she won an award from Mid-America Regional Council in 2006 citing her “outstanding contributions” to the community.
Awards are nice, but what Welch would like to see is an increase in recycling. While popular for those that use the service, the program has not grown as fast as supporters and trash haulers would like to see.
“There is a small cost but everyone must realize that you can either pay for recycling now or pay higher for trash hauling later,” Welch said.
Currently the costs for curbside recycling services are from $2.50 to $5.00 per month. Date of pick-up depends on which company is used. Deffenbaugh or Blackshear are the only companies that provide recycling in the Southern Platte County areas.
Mayor Kathy Dusenbery put the issue into a regional perspective, saying that a failure to recycle now could lead to higher trash hauling costs later.
“Currently this area has three landfills remaining,” Dusenbery said. “Forest View in Kansas City, KS was full and recently closed. The loss of one of the landfills will put more strain on the three existing landfills, causing them to fill up at a quicker rate. The distance to the three remaining landfills is further and will require increased cost.”
Parkville first began recycling during the ‘90s when then Alderman Jack Friedman led the city’s efforts to establish a weekend recycling center which operated with volunteers for several years until forced to give up its site on private property, and no other location could be found.
- Nancy Jack contributed to this story
Residential curbside recycling in Parkville has been in existence since August, 2006 but now these existing Southern Platte County neighborhoods can sign up for residential recycling by calling:
Hidden Valley 816-830-8112
Thousand Oaks 816-830-8112
Walnut Creek 816-830-8112
Parkville residents may call the following numbers:
Parkville 816-830-8112
Riss Lake 913-631-3300
The National 913-631-3300