Clark County Solid Waste will recycle Styrofoam, beautify bike path

Bonnie Martens, program manager at the Clark County Solid Waste District, unfolds the mural that will be hung on the side of a building near the sunflower fields Euclid Avenue. BILL LACKEY/STAFF

Bonnie Martens, program manager at the Clark County Solid Waste District, unfolds the mural that will be hung on the side of a building near the sunflower fields Euclid Avenue. BILL LACKEY/STAFF

The Clark County Solid Waste District is working to help beautify the bike path along Euclid Avenue and has received a grant to progress in its recycling efforts.

The district won a grant that will allow it to buy a recycling machine that will allow residents to finally recycle Styrofoam. Currently, the district has been unable to accept Styrofoam and products like it that are used for packing electronics and other household goods, said Bonnie Martens, program manager for the CCSWD.

“We get a lot of calls and questions about what should they do with their Styrofoam and right now the answer has been to reuse or throw it away,” she said. “There’s a demand from the public for options to recycle it.”

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A timeline for when the new machine will get to Clark County hasn’t been set, Martens said, but the district hopes to have it up and running before the December holidays when residents tend to acquire a lot of it through gift exchanges and discounted retail sales.

She said the district hasn’t created guidelines or rules for use of the machine, but right now the thought is the district will only be able to collect Styrofoam at certain times of the week and there will be restrictions for what they can accept. For instance, Martens said Styrofoam containers that carried food will not be accepted, because it has been contaminated.

Also, the district is working to clean up and beautify the bike path on Euclid Avenue. Sunflowers have already been planted along the bike path and the district will soon paint and hang murals on a building along the path near where the sunflowers were planted.
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Martens said the work will be done mostly by volunteers and is an important step for encouraging residents to use the recreational path.

The sunflowers and murals are part of Keep Clark County Beautiful, an organization that encourages residents to take pride, ownership, and responsibility for enhancing their community’s environment.

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