Students Volunteer at Seward Recycling Center

Photo by Sonja Brandt

By Victoria Cameron

Five Concordia students volunteered at the Seward Recycling Center as representatives of the university.

The Recycling Center was started by Recycling Center employee Jackie Noxon’s father but was later donated to the city of Seward. It is now entirely, apart from Noxon, run by groups of volunteers in the Seward community that the city calls and requests service from. Concordia University is one of these volunteer groups.

“About two years ago, Student Senate took initiative with the Recycling Committee that we have to do it on behalf of the university,” Student Senate President senior Jallah Bolay said.

CUNE students volunteered for two hours the morning of Nov. 9. During that time they sorted and crushed items that were brought in, and assisted the people who brought items. For the rest of the week, Noxon works alone to process recyclables and prepare them for transportation.

“There’s a lot during the week,” Noxon said. “I come every other day, there’s at least an hour’s worth of work.”

The numerous groups of volunteers help keep Noxon’s workload in check, but Noxon never knows how much help she’ll get on a Saturday.

“You don’t know if you’ll get two people, four people, it depends,” Noxon said. “If the weather is nice, you’ll get a lot of people.”

Some of the students participated in the recycling because they needed the community service opportunity, but all agreed in the end that the service was worthwhile, educational and even enjoyable.

“I didn’t know there were so many categories,” senior Cole Humble said. “There were different kinds of plastic, one, two, three through seven, that was a lot of fun, actually.”

Many people use the Recycling Center because it is cheaper to take recyclables there instead of paying for a recycling service. Concordia has opportunities to recycle on campus, but students also have the option of dealing with their recycling personally.

“If you are a real avid recycler, and all you have are your plastic bags and your glass, the plastic bags, you can take them down to Pac-N-Save or Walmart, the glass, you can take it into Lincoln,” Noxon said. “You can almost eliminate your garbage service.”