• Editor’s Note: This article was written by Kane County Recycling Coordinator Jennifer Jarland. Got a question or idea for a recycling tip? Contact Jarland at 630-208-3841 or recycle@countyofkane.org.

We recycled nearly 30 tons (58,866 pounds!) of material at this year’s Kane County Recycling Extravaganza, serving 733 residents in four hours — a clip of three cars per minute!

And those are just a few of the amazing numbers from the super-popular event held Saturday, July 13, at the Kane County Branch Court Office on Randall Road in St. Charles.

Kane County Board member Jarett Sanchez (right) and Kane County Recycling Coordinator Jennifer Jarland were among the smiling faces helping to unload cars at the 2019 extravaganza.

A total of 40 people worked the event.

Thank you to all of the great community volunteers, the community restitution gang, Kane County Environmental Resources staff and our officers from the Office of Emergency Management for directing traffic and keeping everyone safe! We couldn’t do it without the team work!

A huge thank you to all of the contractors who come out to collect their materials for reuse and recycling!

Partners this year included: Batteries Plus, Chicago Textile Recycling, DART Container Corp, EPaint Recycling Solutions, eWorks Electronics Services, Fluorecycle, Lakeshore Recycling Systems, Pacesetter Books, & Working Bikes.

Special thanks, as always, to our neighbor, the Colonial Cafe!

Here is what we collected:

• One 52-foot trailer and one box truck full of electronic equipment — 22,121 pounds!
• One large box truck full of paint  — 2,186 gallons = 15,400 pounds!
• One roll-off dumpster full of books — 9,420 pounds recycled, 1000 pounds reused!
• Forty-eight bicycles, which will be fixed up and redistributed to areas of need in Chicago and globally — 1,312 pounds!
• More than 1,000 fluorescent tube lights — about 100 pounds!
• One semi-truck full of Styrofoam packaging — more than 300 pounds!
• One van full of batteries — 3,165 pounds!
• One-half box truck full of textiles — 2,512 pounds!
• One-third roll-off full of scrap metal — 3,520 pounds!

We did not do shredding at this year’s extravaganza so the numbers are lower overall than they were last year.

But considering that 11 tons of last year’s total of 35 tons was shredded documents, that means we actually collected 5 tons more this year than last!

If you missed the extravaganza, please go to the Kane County Recycles webpages to check out the next scheduled events and other recycling options for all of the things that were collected at the extravaganza.