Recycling an old idea

A tip of the hat — or, more appropriate, a smart military salute — this week to Dan Holub, one of best and most colorful former county commissioners.

In his years of public service, Dan’s staunch conservative exterior often gave way to an inner liberal on several issues, including recycling, which was among his major causes as a commissioner.

Now that the market for recyclables has changed — and the county’s recycling rules have failed to keep up with the times — Dan is coming to the rescue again.

Stop putting your aluminum cans into the trash or, at even higher cost, adding them to your recycling bin. Dan has come up with a win-win solution.

Rather than haul them to the county’s transfer station and pay $5 to have the county take them off your hands, drive a block or so further to the Marion VFW post and drop them in bags into a cage on the west side of the building.

You won’t have to pay a cent. Your city and county won’t have to pay some out-of-town sorting center an outrageous four times as much to recycle the cans as it would cost to bury them. And you’ll actually benefit a cause — honoring veterans with flights to see their monuments in our nation’s capital.

Recycling may be a liberal thing to do, but trust Dan to be able to put a conservative spin on it — proving that private charities can do what government bureaucracies can’t or won’t.

Well done, Dan. Your public service clearly hasn’t ended despite no longer being in the armed service or the unarmed but equally dangerous service of county politics.

— ERIC MEYER