City wins recycling award for second straight year

Through support and participation from many citizens, the City of Clarendon received the PEP (Partners for Environmental Progress) Recycling Award in the region for the second year in a row.

In one year, the city’s community recycling program diverted 388,878 pounds of trash, which is 197 pounds per citizen.

“When we were contacted by Elizabeth True at PRPC with the congratulations that we had won the award again, I was very excited,” said John Web, City Administrator. “Citizens of Clarendon, who are taking their time to recycle, are doing a good job of keeping Clarendon green.”

Since the initiation of the recycling program in 1998, many additions have been made. Webb said that the program is continuing to improve over time.

“We owe it to Joe Neal Shadle (who is the supervisor over recycling and sanitation) and his employees, who are very conscientious of keeping the city clean,” Webb said.

One difference that the recycling employees are making in the community is trimming trees.

“We’ve been trimming overgrowth in the alleys, and I’m hoping that citizens have seen a difference in the alleys that we’ve been cleaning up,” Webb said.

The City of Dalhart was awarded the PEP Composting Award for diverting the most wood and yard waste from the landfill.

According to Webb, Clarendon was not too far behind their statistics of four million pounds of grass, leaves, and yard waste.

“Hopefully in 2010 we are looking to possibly expand, and we’re going to start talking about getting a big wood chipper,” Webb said. “We want to improve our composting program because even with the composting that we’re doing right now, we’re pretty close to what Dalhart got.”

Webb would like to express his appreciation to all who took part in making this achievement possible.

“As I’ve said many times in the past, the recycling employees go the extra yard and they’re receiving recognition for their efforts, and I think that’s great,” Webb said. “And our big thanks goes out to all the citizens of Clarendon who are taking their time to recycle.”