Keep Cass County “Beautiful News”

The mission of Keep Cass Coun-ty Beautiful is to educate, enable and encourage all Cass County residents to take greater respon-sibility for enhancing their com-munity environment.

KCCB Board of Directors Mitch Pearrow, President Terry Lorensen, Vice President Richard Yoder, Secretary John Baroni, Treasurer Members: Roger Behrns & Mindy Rush-Chipman Linda Behrns, Executive Director

Presentations: If you would like to have a speaker for your school, church or organization about litter prevention, recycling or beautification, please contact us. There is no fee for programs.

Financing provided through the Litter Reduction and Recycling Grant Program, Nebraska Depart-ment of Environmental Quality and the generosity of our donors and members. KCCB is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

www.keepcasscountybeautiful.org Email:

KeepCassCountyBeautiful@Yahoo.com

402-234-6775 Follow us on Facebook and Twitter

Quarterly Newsletter

Fall 2016

Issue #8

Close the loop…Buy recycled!

American Exchange Bank, Ash Grove Cement Company, Bloom Where You’re Planted

Farm,

Cass County Fair Board,

City of Louisville,

City of Weeping Water,

Eagle Nursery,

Janet McCartney,

John’s Appliance,

Leibman Financial Services,

Midlands Community Foundation

Midwest Farmer’s Coop,

Oxbow Animal Health,

Papillion Sanitation,

Pinnacle Bank,

Plantman Nursery,

Plattsmouth Animal Hospital, Plattsmouth Hy-Vee,

Soil Dynamics Composting Farm,

Stock Seed Farms, Inc,

Union JunKtion,

Village of Cedar Creek, Village of Manley,

Village of Union

Louisville Public School Starts Composting

Soil Dynamics, Inc. and Gretna Sanitation are piloting a new com-posting program at Louisville Public School this year. KCCB, WeCompost and WasteCap Nebraska helped with the initial stu-dent training in the cafeteria the first week of school.

Students are shown emptying food waste that will be taken to Soil Dynamics Compost Farm near Ashland where it will be mixed with animal waste, vegetation, and wood mulch. According to Andy Harpenau, Compost and Mulch Specialist for Soil Dynamics, the program is going pretty well and there is minimal contamina-tion. Turning the food waste into compost is diverting many pounds of waste from the local landfill, decreasing methane gas formed by organics and creating a cleaner, greener environment.

Local Groups Earn Environmental Awards

Applications are now being accepted to plant fall trees through the ReTree Nebraska program. Trees can be planted between September 1st and November 15, 2016.

All grant applications must be submitted online at

go.unl.edu/2016minigrantThe program provides trees to the grant recipients, not fund-ing for trees. Anyone is eligible to submit a request for trees. Schools, non-profit groups and civic organizations are encour-aged to apply. Individuals must represent a group or organiza-tion. A maximum of 10 trees will be allowed for any single request. Direct questions to: Jessica Kelling, ReTree Nebras-ka & NFS council liaison: (402) 472-0220; jkelling2@unl.edu.

Thank You 2016 Corporate Sponsors

Keep Nebraska Beautiful (KNB) recently honored multiple groups, Keep America Beautiful Affili-ates and local communities across the state in eight categories. The awards were based on all environmental projects completed between June 1, 2015 and May 31, 2016. The KNB Awards Luncheon was held August 25, 2016 at the Hilton Garden Inn in the Historic Haymarket in Lin-coln, Nebraska.

The Village of Manley was honored with a first place Great American Cleanup Award and a $50 cash prize. They were recognized for holding cleanup events throughout the year, implementing a curbside recycling program and for collecting nearly 4 tons of waste dur-ing their fall cleanup event. The Manley community also received a sec-ond place Deanie Anderson Community Award in the “Populations less than 2500 Di-vision”. The award recognized litter and recy-cling events throughout the year, a new curbside recycling program and beautification projects in the park.

(Above left to rt.) Trish Owen, Vice Chairman, KNB Board; Village of Manley award recipients: Mickey Dalton, board member; Jolene Dalton, Manley Village clerk; Betty Meyer, board chair; Denise Swenson, board member; and Jennifer Jehn, President & CEO of Keep America Beautiful. The Weeping Water High School FBLA Chap-ter received a Youth Group/School Award of Excellence for decreasing the amount of gar-bage produced through recycling efforts and by conducting litter pickups twice a year. The organization was also honored with a School Recycling Award of Excellence by partnering with Keep Cass County Beautiful to add plas-tics recycling to their school recycling pro-gram. The FBLA school sponsor is Sue Heinz. (left to rt.) Trish Owen, KNB Board; Michaela Lawrence, Weeping Water FBLA Presi-dent; Jacob Meyer, FBLA Vice President; and Jennifer Jehn, CEO of KAB.

Keep Cass County Beautiful received a gold affiliate award for fulfilling all 13 state and national criteria in litter prevention, waste management and beautification projects.

New KCCB Youth Advisory Council

These students from Louisville Public School are mem-

bers of the newly formed KCCB Youth Advisory Council,

a new initiative of Keep America Beautiful to further en-

gage, educate and inspire youth as the next generation of

environmental and community stewards.

The group has conducted their first litter survey observa-

tion and litter cleanup of the school grounds as part of the

first instructional module called Litter Free Schools. The

program provides the opportunity to measure changes in

the amount of litter on the school campus after implemen-

tation of KAB interventions, awareness campaigns and

another litter cleanup. Other modules of the youth driven

program include Trashless Tree Trails and Waste Audit.

Youth Advisory Council members are (left to right) Avery

Heard, Annika Covington, Bella Sayre, Julian Covington,

Danni Barkhurst, Skyler Lipsys and Eric Heard. Not

shown is member Lily Korytowski.

International Coastal Cleanup

Local volunteers recently spent an afternoon collecting

litter in the Platte River during the Ocean Conservancy’s

International Coastal Cleanup, the world’s largest volun-

teer effort on behalf of ocean and waterway health. Alt-

hough the Platte River is a distance from the nearest

ocean, the litter will eventually find its way there. Ocean

and waterway trash ranks as one of the most serious pol-

lution problems choking our planet. Marine debris threat-

ens human health, wildlife, communities and economies

around the world.

Volunteers were represented from the following organi-

zations: The Lower Platte River Corridor Alliance, the

Nature Conservancy, the Nebraska Watershed Network,

the Nebraska Airboat Association, Platte River Rentals

and Keep Cass County Beautiful. The group collected

about 485 pounds of trash, 2 tires and part of a baby crib.

The data will be reported, analyzed and published on the

Ocean Conservancy website.

KCCB is providing cleanup supplies to the Beaver Lake

Fishing Club who will also soon be hosting an Interna-

tional Coastal Cleanup of Beaver Lake.

Plans are being made to make this a yearly event, so con-

tact us if you’d like to be a part of this venture next year.

And finally, thanks to all of you who visited our KCCB

booth and recycled cans, plastic bottles, cell phones and

rechargeable batteries at the Cass County Fair.

Household Hazardous Waste Collections

Three household hazardous waste collections were held in the county on August 18 and 19. Although the number of households participating was down from last year, the amount of materials by volume was up in most catego-ries. Here are the results of the collections by categories: Households participating: 106; Paint 6,660 lbs.; Pesti-cides 1,540 lbs.; Acid bases 327 lbs.; Oil 142 gallons; Round Up 4.5 gal.; Anti-Freeze 39 gal.; Recycling 210 lbs.; 2-4D 7 gal.; Florescent light bulbs 351; Batteries 70. This service was made possible through a grant from the Nebraska Environmental Trust. Other assistance was provided by Cass County, Five Rivers Resource Conser-vation & Development (RC&D), Midwest Farmer’s CO-OP, Ash Grove Cement, Wiles Bros., Cass Co. Roads Dept., Cass Co. Weed Office, Cass Co. Emergency Man-agement, KCCB and other local volunteers.

* * * * * * * * * Florescent light bulbs are accepted at local Lowe’s, Menard’s and Home Depot Stores. Used oil & oil filters may be taken to Keckler Oil, Weeping Water and O’Reilly Auto Parts, Plattsmouth.

Cass County Fair