If members of Osceola High School’s Air Force Junior ROTC unit come to you asking for empty Amazon boxes, you can hand them over for a good cause.
Know they will be recycled, and you may help a student earn a $500 Amazon gift card.
It’s all part of the “Amazon Challenge” that runs through Jan. 10 at OHS. The male and female cadets who recycle the most of the online merchant’s boxes will win the cards.
To help the cause, Underground Refuse Systems, a Kissimmee-based company changing the landscape of trash and recycled materials removal, has donated a pair of its patented waste storage containers to the school. URS President Jay Wheeler unveiled the containers and announced the contest Wednesday.
“The holidays are coming, and Amazon will be delivering a lot of stuff,” Wheeler said. “We’ve invited Amazon out to pick up their boxes. We’ll see if they come, because they need to start reusing their stuff. It’ll be a teachable moment for trash and recycling here at Osceola High School.”
Cadet Col. Giselle Rivera of the ROTC program said this is more about keeping the campus clean than winning money — which doesn’t hurt.
“This will make it so much easier, considering we didn’t recycle at all here my freshman year,” she said. “I know we waste a lot of paper in our classrooms and it can all come here.”
Lt. Col. David LaTour said this initiative can further the cadets’ “OHS Green and Clean” program.
“We originally adopted Clay Street, then the county got rid of the program. Now we can focus on campus while creating citizens of character serving their community right here and turn OHS into Disney Springs. If it stays clean, more people will respect.”
These aren’t typical dumpsters, which Wheeler calls “A 1930s concept.” Sensors inside the bins alert when they are full and need to be unloaded, creating a route for the specially-designed trucks that service them.
These two mobile units are part of Underground Refuse Systems’ above-ground stock of containers. They are mobile, so the City of Kissimmee can move them to another location, to the site of a large event, for example, and return them to OHS. URS is the only North American distributor of this waste removal technology.
URS’ underground units, which keep trash and recyclables in bins beneath street level that cut down on smell and unwanted rodents, appear throughout downtown Kissimmee and are also being installed in Clearwater, and Wheeler is in talks with other American cities to add the technology.