Mid Valley Recycling Gains Celebrity Volunteer
Contributed by Sammy Taylor
It is always a pleasure to meet community members who recycle and to share with new folks the financial (and other) benefits of recycling and composting. As most of you know, the average American family saves ¾ of their trash bill when they recycle and compost.
And it’s such a joy when we realize that half of the corrugated collected in the Valley stays in the Valley for repurposing into insulation, hydro-seed and livestock bedding. All of the collected newspaper is also used for those purposes by Thermo-kool in Palmer. Now with Alaska Plastic Recovery based in Palmer, we also see lots of our recycled plastic being turned into Grizzlywood. Check out the Grizzlywood picnic tables at Big Lake and Willow libraries and at VCRS.
Now we get a new pleasure in the commitment of Mrs. Alaska Elemental 2024 as our newest Mid Valley Recycling volunteer! Dr. Jennifer Donaldson is a licensed (in Alaska and Texas) veterinarian. She has already been seen volunteering as part of the Iditarod veterinary crew in 2019 and 2020, as well as local qualifying races in recent years. Although her veterinary expertise focuses on emergency/critical care medicine as well as physical rehabilitation, she is known as Jen the Vet who enjoys hosting teddy bear check-up events to help teach kids about pet health. Mid Valley Recycling is happy and grateful to have Dr. Donaldson join us.
So do your part….save money, help keep recyclables in the recycling stream and meet Mrs. Alaska by joining us every Saturday and Sunday noon to 3:00 at the Big Lake transfer station!