Cans for Cash Challenge begins

Monday marked the first day of Sidney’s citywide efforts competing in the Cans for Cash City Recycling Challenge, and today is the first day schools will be participating in the challenge.

Not only do Sidney students have the enticement that comes with cleaning up their city and recycling for the challenge, the owner of Dairy Queen, Craig Shannon, has also given them an additional incentive.

According to the manager of the establishment, Heather Gonzalez, Dairy Queen employees said that they will be offering “the Sidney school that collects the most weight in cans per student average with a Dilly Bar Party.”

“The Cans for Cash Challenge lasts through the end of April and if a school has more students it means they will have to collect more cans to win the party,” said Cheryl Jones, the Director of Keep Sidney Beautiful (the organization heading the recycling efforts.)

“I will be collecting every Friday at the schools and then anything that people bring to U.S. Recycling and the other places, canister behind the chamber etc., will go in towards the weight for the schools too, as well as just total weight for the city altogether.

“Even if they take them to the landfill he will weigh them there so we can get a good idea of how much recycling we did for the whole city over the month,” she said.

Although only one entire school will reap the delicious Dairy Queen reward, all Sidney Public Schools will receive benefits from participating in the program.

“The proceeds from the cans that go to U.S. Recycling will go to the booster clubs for the schools,” said Jones.

“I’m super excited,” said Gonzalez of the challenge. “I actually have a teaching degree and so it’s just excited to be in the schools helping even though that’s not technically what I’m doing.”

Jones said that school faculty is providing notices to students about the project and school competition, and that the high school has been announcing the matter three times a week and that the middle school is spreading the word on a daily basis.

“Make every Can Count,” has become a popular slogan for the recycling campaign and one can could ultimately determine which school is the winner.

“This is going to be great for Sidney and for continuing to get our community involved in recycling,” said Jones.

The three can drop-off locations throughout the city are U.S. Recycling at 151 E Elm St., Keep Sidney Beautiful at 740 Illinois St. and any of the Sidney Public Schools.

Although the Dilly Bar competition is solely for the schools, the competition is a citywide effort and the top recycling cities in the nation at the end of the competition are rewarded for their efforts. Winning cities will be announced in June.

A $25,000 reward will be given to the winning city in each of the two categories of the Cans for Cash Challenge. Second place winners will receive $15,000 and third place winners earn $5,000 for their recycling efforts.

“Nearly $100,000 in prizes will be awarded to municipalities for recycling initiatives,” said Jones.

Winners for the “Most Cans Collected” category are determined by the ratio of total number of recycled cans and city population. For the “Most Innovative Ideas Award” this year, winners will be determined by the cities’ recycling efforts.

For more information on the Cans for Cash City Recycling Challenge Sidney residents can visit http://www.cans4cash.com or http://www.keepsidneybeautiful.org.