Leading with Action

            What better way to kick off my campaign for Kent County Commissioner than with a Big Party?  I mean a fantastic, pack-the-Eberhard-Center party. We'll have Michigan Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist as the keynote speaker and Congressional candidate Hillary Scholten as the mistress of ceremonies. 

      Okay, the 2022 KentDem Gala wasn't exactly a party for ME.

       Saturday's bash was a major local fundraiser and a cheering session for all the Democratic candidates across the state. "A movement," Gilchrist said. And when Dems are on the move, Dems Win. 

 So ignore all those polls that say Dems are losing in the midterms. It may be  traditional for the party that won the presidential election to lose the midterms. We're not bound by tradition. And we have not begun to fight. 

              

             The Gala was a great time to catch up with lots of candidates and representatives like State Senator Winnie Brinks and State Rep (running for Senate) David LaGrand. It was also a chance to touch base with Carol Glanville who is the one-to-watch in Tuesday's special election for the 74th House District. Can she flip a district that has been redder than Santa Claus? We say she can. Good Luck Carol.

Carol Glanville and Sue Merrell.

Kent County reimagines trash

             A  front-end loader scoops a most-scrappy mound of trash and dumps the motley mixture into a machine. Soon, before my eyes, that mound and many more are gobbled up and spit out onto conveyor belts at the Kent County Recycling and Education Center. 

          In one tower  paddles suck up the light-weight paper and send it one direction while the heavy glass falls to the bottom and is crushed into sparking sand.  The mid-weight items come out in the middle. Magnets separate the metals until only plastics remain. Then a beam of light, like a giant grocery scanner,  sorts the various plastics by number. 

        The machines miss a few things. Operators snatch errant cardboard from the plastic parade, which also includes a few oddities like a black shoe, a tennis ball and a broken flowerpot. But eventually the jumbled mess from the front-end loader is sorted into huge, homogenous bundles.

         

    A car-size brick of flattened, translucent milk jugs looks vaguely like a cluster of big balloons. It certainly doesn't look like trash. In another corner bales of flattened cans are lined up like cartons of groceries. The sorted bundles will be sent in different directions to processing centers that deal solely with glass or plastic or metal in such places as Canada, Chicago and Indiana. 

           The Recycling and Education Center, 1045 Wealthy St. SW, is open for tours 1-5 on Monday afternoons. Associate Ally Beshouri was my enthusiastic guide on a recent Monday. 

        I've been dropping off my recycling at the center for several years but this is the first time I went in for a tour. Tours can be scheduled for groups including children who can learn to make toys from trash. There's also an interesting historic timeline on recycling going back to the Greeks. So if you haven't visited Kent County's Recycling and Education Center I strongly recommend it.