Laramie residents and UW students with glass recyclables will soon have opportunities to drop them off for processing, courtesy of the Wyoming Conservation Corps.
The WCC, a non-profit company founded in 2006, associated with AmeriCorps and based on the UW campus, has set upcoming dates for March 24 and 25, as well as April 20 and 21. On Earth Day, the organization will be present on the university campus in coordination with other Earth Day events and initiatives.
Two collection events have already taken place during the weekend of Saturday, Feb 3, in the Walmart parking lot.
“The first recycling event went really well—a lot of community support,” Project Coordinator Jim Fried said. “We filled all of our bins; we have a little over 40 City of Laramie recycling bins that the city gives us every year. We filled those up, no problem, in our eight hours of collecting and we’re asking for more in the future.”
Even in locations with other recycling options, glass is a tough item to handle. The nearest functional drop-off point is Cheyenne, where other organizations reroute it to Denver by means of truck or train.
“There’s no place in Laramie that I could go drop it off anymore,” Fried said. “Denver is the closest hub to actually manage and break down that glass. Geographically speaking, it’s not cost-efficient to transport glass all the way from here to Denver.
On the UW campus itself and in the residence halls, recycling options for plastics, cans, paper and cardboard are readily available. Residents of UW apartments, including Spanish Walk, River Village, Bison Run Village and Landmark Village, do not have such opportunities and must instead outsource their materials.
“For people who are concerned about recycling, there are ways to do it, it’s just not that convenient,” Fried said.
The WCC’s recycling events have taken place each spring since 2014, with other conservation efforts demanding full-time attention during the other seasons.
