Green Innovations Challenge: Cash Prizes for Recycling
Contributed by Sammy Taylor
I can’t believe how hard it is to give away money! Mid Valley Recycling is paying good money to students with good ideas. Do you want some?
It’s simple. Just think of a way to locally use what is recycled or taken to the landfill here. If you are the age of kindergartner to fourth graders, you and your friends could earn one of four $500 prizes. If you are the age of a fifth through eighth grader, there is a second-place prize of $1,000 and a first place prize of $2,000. High school age students can earn $2,000 for second place or $3,000 for first place.
Can we turn old tires into sandals? Or how about using them for rammed earth retaining walls or foundations like they do in the lower 48?
What can we do with all the glass (which doesn’t contaminate but takes up space in landfills)?
Grizzly Wood founder Patrick Simpson can use several different kinds of plastic to make his plastic lumber in Palmer and elsewhere in the state. Can we use some of that technology to make more useful things for Valley customers? How do we use all the discarded plastic in the Valley?
How about the junk mail, magazines, cereal boxes, and other recycled mixed paper? Right now, it’s shipped south. But could we use standard paper- making practices to make something else right here and save the transportation costs?
What else are we wasting because we don’t have more useful ideas? Get your application in by March 30 and get some of this money for yourself or for your group. Get an application at www.valleyrecyclingak.org or email taylorsammy230@gmail.com.