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Keeping our environment clean

Reduce, reuse and recycle. How about refuse to use? The No. 1 issue with litter is plastic bags followed closely behind by plastic straws. How about refusing the plastic bag when you are shopping and bringing your own cloth bags instead? How about taking any plastic bags you have at home and instead of trying to recycle them or throw them into the trash that they are taken back to the store? How about refusing the straw with your drink at a restaurant and not purchasing them for your home? Refusing to use is like reducing too because by refusing to use, we are also reducing these two particular waste problems. When we think of plastic bags, this includes plastic trash bags too. This is why we do not bag our recyclables. Recyclables just get tossed into the recycling cart. If you don’t want the recycling cart in your home (they are pretty big), you can use a small box or container or even a paper grocery bag (which is recyclable) to place your recycling in and when that container is full, simply take it to your cart.

This is also a way that folks in apartment buildings can also recycle. Lyon County doesn’t provide a cart to apartment buildings but you can still recycle and bring your recyclables to the recycling bins that are located out at the Lyon County Fairgrounds or near the Armory. If you live in an apartment building in another location other than Marshall, there are recycling containers located within every town in Lyon County. The recycling containers that are in every community in Lyon County are also there for rural residents. I live out in the country and I use a container to hold our recyclables until it is full. I bring them to Marshall, since I work there every day and I use the recycling containers for my families recycling. If you want to bring your recycling to a different town because you work there or for some other reason, you can sure do that too.

There are two recycling issues to talk about (other than plastic straws or plastic bags) and that is pop and beer boxes along with needles. Lyon County can recycle pop and beer boxes as long as they are clean and dry. This is one of the packaging products that seems to change in their acceptance into our recycling containers. This is good news! The second item is needles. Please do not place needles into the garbage or the recycling containers. Please remember that there are multiple people who handle the trash and who handle the recycled materials. We do not want to have anyone get stuck accidentally by used needles. Please work with your doctor, hospital or healthcare facility in disposing of these types of things. We want to keep everyone safe!

The last tip for October has to do with Halloween. Halloween makes extra trash particularly when it comes to candy wrappers. Plastic and foil candy wrappers are not recyclable. If you have pumpkins, remember to not throw them in the trash but try to compost them instead.

There is always more to learn about when it comes to keeping our environment clean. If your group or business would like to have the Lyon County Environmental Department come to your meeting or place of business to give you a presentation, please feel free to contact us. If you have any questions about recycling or what to do with things you are looking to get rid of, give us a call or email me at Stephanie Bethke-DeJaeghere@co.lyon.mn.us or call direct to 507-532-1307.

The Lyon County website is located at http://www.lyonco.org/env or visit the Lyon County Facebook page. To reach the Lyon County Environmental Department, call 507-532-8210. We are open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. and every second Saturday of the month from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. We are open over the noon hour. The Lyon County Landfill is located south of Marshall near Lynd. The hours for the landfill are Monday-Friday 6 a.m.-4 p.m. and every Saturday from 7 a.m.-noon.

Photo: Courtesy of Keep America Beautiful

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