Purdy Recycling Project

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Purdy Recycling Project We are open every Tuesday from 3:30-5:30 and every third Saturday of the month from 8:30am- 10:30am. Moving into more areas of community sustainability.

Please bring your material sorted if you can, or come in and sort it yourself. Operates the Purdy Recycling Project, the only school-based, industrial recycling program in the nation. Has recycled more than 730,000 pounds of material since 2006.

We plant our daffodil bulbs in the fall, aiming for 4-5 inches deep in our rows--less for smaller bulbs. They stay ther...
09/17/2026

We plant our daffodil bulbs in the fall, aiming for 4-5 inches deep in our rows--less for smaller bulbs. They stay there for two growing seasons before we harvest them for sale, and enjoy them when they bloom, checking labels and removing misplaced 'rogue' bulbs. Some years back, they were never organized to be sold, and now we have whatever we planted two years ago, and next year we will have doubles, flaming red cups, pinks, multi-flowered jonquils and lots more variety, but here is the rest of this year's lineup, which will not return for a few years. May we have good weather next spring so that we can finally sell fresh flowers too!

We went through all of our graded-for-sale bulbs today, the largest, most vigorous ones that should produce two or more ...
09/17/2026

We went through all of our graded-for-sale bulbs today, the largest, most vigorous ones that should produce two or more flowers each. These are not rare bulbs that we are growing for our retail friends in Virginia, but they will be new to our area. We are not trying to compete with big growers in The Netherlands or elsewhere, but rather to grow bulbs that have been inoculated with the wide range of microbes they need to produce their own nutrients. Those microbes are already living inside them, and we expect them to actually improve the soil where they are planted, while also producing strong, fragrant and durable flowers, whether left outside or picked to brighten your home in early spring. That is the unique niche we want to make part of life and agriculture in Barry County, Missouri. And your daffodils will slowly multiply if you just give them decent sun and you let their foliage live until it starts to die down in May. Beware the early lawnmower!

We won't fully establish those claims for a few years, but we are starting where we are and giving it our best, knowing that we have a chance to do something at least as unlikely as the Purdy Recycling Project has been. We will start looking for a place to sell them as soon as we get all the pictures up with the next post. Please give us any questions you might have, for us to answer then.

09/15/2026

In the past year, our posts have often had 1,000 to 4,000 views, and one video was watched over 88,000 times, so a lot of people know about us, and about our long struggle to survive--thank you for all that support! We are still digging out from under a recent mountain of cardboard, but the 100 degree days are now routine.

We shipped our second crop of wholesale daffodils off to Virginia this week, and if it cools down, we want to start planting the next crop by October 1st. This video gives a quick tour of the warehouse, where several hundred varieties await planting. We have not yet calculated how many thousands of bulbs that will be, but we don't want to plant them all.

Daffodils are not well known in our area, except for the wild, all-yellow ones that shoot up and bloom in early March. Originally from Spain, those pass-along bulbs were traded to the Cherokee nation in the 1500s, and brought to Arkansas by them before the Trail of Tears. The modern daffodil craze began in England and The Netherlands in the 1800s, and there are now more than 32,000 named varieties, many of them much showier than the old ones. We need to create a local market here, to extend their huge popularity to here. So, that's another job coming up really, really fast, and pictures are coming soon!

Suddenly it has been three weeks since our big tour day, and we have yet to finish the rest of the story.We had waited a...
09/01/2026

Suddenly it has been three weeks since our big tour day, and we have yet to finish the rest of the story.

We had waited a full year to ship the cardboard bales stacked so high in our building because we let go of the trailer and the broker that was charging us $200/ month to rent it; we had a grant, but it didn't seem right, and we needed a new broker. Then, thanks to a tip from the Neosho Recycling Center, we contacted a woman-owned firm named ORE, and they were happy to send a truck for our bales, happening that very same day.

We opened as usual, and received several huge loads of cardboard before the truck arrived. Kevin, the ORE driver was a delight who quickly figured out how to get the bales off the pallets, and wanted to do the loading while we kept baling. So we fought our way through the mess with our crew of four, then dumped two more bales just in time to complete the load at 33 bales, about 16 1/2 tons. We could not clean it all up that day, but we stood around looking at space we had not had for months, amazed at what we had all accomplished together.

Today will be yet another hundred-degree day, but we will be there again, grateful to welcome those of you who can do the work to support us!

Last Tuesday was historic for us, as we welcomed Region N Solid Waste District members, local officials and DNR represen...
08/18/2026

Last Tuesday was historic for us, as we welcomed Region N Solid Waste District members, local officials and DNR representatives for a tour of our building. As you know, it was hot, but we walked and talked through the whole building, and then everyone headed uphill to the school for the Region N monthly board meeting and for a longer version of our 20-year history. It was exciting to have four DNR employees come to see us, several county commissioners and an official from the Missouri General Assembly--about 25 people altogether. We made new contacts, took thoughtful questions and heard solid ideas for improving our operation, plus the chance to say that recycling is still important, that education needs to focus, not on getting people to recycle, but on improving systems so that we can see the benefits right where we live. That was the morning, and we will share the afternoon in our next post.

Amidst the work to maintain Purdy's recycling program, we also worked on digging this year's crop of daffodil bulbs, fro...
07/27/2026

Amidst the work to maintain Purdy's recycling program, we also worked on digging this year's crop of daffodil bulbs, from May 12th until the end of June. At the very end, our garden bulbs were practically floating in clay mud, as seen in the first picture, from that 20-inch rainy spell. The digging was hard, but we realized that our bulbs were thriving in heavy clay soil that does not drain well, and this was truly baffling evidence that our emphasis on soil biology is working.

All our bulbs had to be put into drying tunnels at the end of each day, to prevent rotting. And now we we have finally finished the cleaning process, to safely store them until soil temps cool in the fall.

During the cleaning process, we realized a lot about ourselves. Not only were we constantly adding better ways to organize our processes, we were teaching things to each other. One of those was 'pattern recognition', such as quickly grading some bulbs for future sale, and the rest for planting stock. Hanging bags of bulbs requires precise knots that took practice, but the coolest thing was leaning to recognize the way bulbs look in your hands, to count them by fives, add them up and remember the number. We did this work with a fan to blow away the chaff, and it was wonderful to see how just handling the beautiful bulbs (when they don't yet know what the flowers look like) develops an appreciation for them. Our team has gotten really careful, checking for damage or an occasional rotten bulb.

In the last picture, can you count the bulbs within quick glance?

As we look forward to our monthly 3rd Saturday event, tomorrow from 8:30 until 10:30, we can also tell you that four of ...
07/17/2026

As we look forward to our monthly 3rd Saturday event, tomorrow from 8:30 until 10:30, we can also tell you that four of our members have now completed a certified forklift trainer course, and it is an unusual thing to add to their résumés. It helps us feel more professional and more organized. We also have a new broker who is going to come to us and pick up all 31 of our cardboard bales, and who seems to want to help us grow, survive and thrive. And one of our members figured out how put us on Google Maps, one more piece of organization.

Two big pieces of progress to report:We finally have our own forklift, smaller and handier than the big one we have borr...
06/30/2026

Two big pieces of progress to report:

We finally have our own forklift, smaller and handier than the big one we have borrowed from the school for years. And we have guttering installed in the south side of our building, which should help with the erosion there.

Many other projects are in the works, but it sure is nice to check off a few things.

06/19/2026

One of the great joys of working in a business with little capital to risk is the desire to innovate messy processes with simple and effective ideas. In this video, two of our members put their thoughts and passion for recycling oil filters into a fun way to get them out of a deep tote. We will be open this 3rd Saturday from 8:30 a.m. until 10:30, and more than happy to demonstrate our $5 neodymium magnet for you!

This is what greeted us last Tuesday when we got to recycling, because we had not finished our work the week before. It...
06/15/2026

This is what greeted us last Tuesday when we got to recycling, because we had not finished our work the week before. It was daunting, but we got through it all, plus a lot of grant paperwork that has brought our new (used) forklift closer, and that will pay for guttering to prevent the erosion into our loading dock. A few other things look different in the building, and we are slowly moving forward.

But we are down to small crew again, and that is hard. If any of our followers knows anyone, of any age, who finds joy in working to build a stronger community, anyone who is motivated by a sense of common purpose, please consider us. Our members learn work skills, cooperation, mental flexibility, problem-solving and much more, as well as how to grow flowers, fruits and vegetables. Here to Help Purdy is a great place to start or add to a résumé!

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202 Gabby Gibbons Drive
Purdy, MO
65734

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