A man on a mission
Brianna Conway
Issue date: 10/24/08 Section: News
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Although Country Home magazine ranks the city of Grand Forks 52nd in the nation for going "green", Deringer says the whole city benefits from recycling programs - except for the downtown area.
"The problem downtown is the sheer volume of materials that bars alone are not able to recycle. Some of the bars can fill up one dumpster in a single night - about 300-400 pounds. And these are all materials that could easily be recycled," he said.
Deringer began this program informally last year getting his friends and people within his living complex to recycle. It wasn't until recently that he decided to open up the program downtown as well. Funding the plan on his own, Deringer has set up one location with four separate containers where community members and businesses can recycle their aluminum, plastics, glass, tin cans, and paper.
"I just wanted to give people in this area the opportunity to recycle if they choose to do so. It's there as one more option for them instead of just throwing their materials into the dumpsters."
Deringer notes that it takes about 70 percent less energy to create something from recycled materials rather than from scratch. Landfills have been an issue for Grand Forks in the past, and Deringer hopes that the recycling plan can help out, if not resolve, the issue.
"The City of Grand Forks website challenges us citizens to recycle 80 percent of our waste," he says, "But that's not an option for people living and conducting business downtown, and that should be corrected and reversed."
While the rest of Grand Forks has a bi-weekly recycling pick-up schedule, the downtown district does not have a recycling program in place, mainly due to space issues. Deringer agrees with the city that in general there is little space to run such a program, but thinks businesses would be willing to make changes.
"People want to see this program work. I think a lot of businesses would be very receptive to giving up certain areas to devote to placing recycling bins," he continues, "There are already some business owners talking to the city about it. This program will serve as a starting point for something bigger to hopefully happen in the future."
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
MBK
posted 10/23/08 @ 2:10 PM CST
Thank you! I've been living downtown for three years now and it just seems ridiculous to have to drive somewhere to recycle!
By the way, that looks like my dumpster he's standing next to. (Continued…)
Jordan
posted 10/30/08 @ 12:16 PM CST
This man is awesome! What great initiative and leadership.
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