JOPLIN, Mo. — An area city has received a large grant to help educate residents about reducing the amount of trash going into local landfills.

If you aren’t originally from Joplin, you may not realize there are two options when it comes to recycling.

• One, you can pay for curbside service that includes trash bins with a light blue lid for your recyclables.

• Or you can collect recyclable items from your trash stream and bring them to the recycling center near A Street and Maiden Lane.

Making sure residents of all ages know about these options and other ways to reduce the flow of trash into landfills is one of the goals of a $1.74 million grant the City of Joplin just received from the E.P.A.

“Joplin Schools are involved, Region M is involved, as well as some other partners, so over the next couple of years, we will be developing additional programming to increase awareness about recycling, composting, those types of things as well with our partners, how we can develop educational programs perhaps with the school district to educate young people about the importance of recycling,” said Tony Robyn, Joplin Assistant City Manager.

And he says dollars from the city’s solid waste fund will be added in to make the total an even two million dollars.

Ads on television and social media as well as school curriculum are all options to get the reduce, reuse, and recycle message out over the next three years.

He says the city has had a good track record in attracting grant money during 2023.

“We’ve been really successful in over 40 million dollars in grant funds received this year to city efforts equates to over 80 million dollars in projects so this is one of multiple, multi-million dollar efforts that the city’s participated in,” said Robyn.