KEARNEY — When Kristi Castillo’s 6-year-old son said to her, “Adults don’t care about the planet,” she decided to take action. Castillo, a researcher at Baldwin Filters, wife and mother of two, said her son Ian, now 9, was concerned about the amount of trash that is filling the planet. “And he said, ‘Look. Look at all the trash. They just put the trash everywhere. There’s trash on the ground. There’s trash everywhere they eat. Everybody just throws trash everywhere,’” Castillo said. Castillo told Ian though that their family was recycling and didn’t litter. “And he’s like, ‘Well, that’s horrible.’ He’s like, ‘Our whole planet is going to get buried in trash,’” Castillo said. Ian also was distraught by photos on the internet of animals drowning in plastic. “He goes through every single one of those and tells me every scenario of everything that’s going to kill all the animals,” Castillo said. To calm and motivate Ian, Castillo told him that their family would achieve small goals to be part of the solution. They first stopped using plastic bags at the grocery store. Then the Castillos stopped buying products they didn’t need any more, such as individualized fruit snacks. “We don’t need single package snacks to go in your lunches,” Castillo said. In exchange, she bought food in bulk and packaged it in reusable containers. Castillo said they don’t use plastic sandwich bags. She then quit buying so many products online, which reduced the cardboard in her house and the fuel used by delivery drivers to get the goods to her door. Two years ago, she and her husband, Daniel, started compost piles in their Kearney backyard. They use a loose bin for grass clippings and cornhusks and another bin for produce scraps. Composting these materials, Castillo said, allows the food to break down properly and not emit gases into the atmosphere as it would in a landfill. The Castillos also set aside a bin for trash that can be washed and reused for community projects. Recently, Castillo began to stow away metal straws in her bag while out with her children. When ordering coffee, Castillo asks that they prepare her drink in a steel cup that she carries with her. “People think zero waste and all of that stuff is so hard and everything else, but it’s just little things that make a huge difference. You don’t have to do it all at once,” Castillo said. Now that Castillo has a handle on reducing and reusing in her home, she has spread her knowledge to her workplace and the community. At work, Castillo collects recyclables such as chip bags and pop cans from her co-workers. She also started a High Performance Team with other departments at Baldwin Filters to tackle waste at the plant. In the community, she shares “swap” ideas on her Facebook page — Kearney Area Reuse It — which she started in December 2018. The page currently has 400 members who also may exchange reusable items on the site. Castillo collects some of these items, such as toilet paper rolls and glass bottles, from other people through the site. She keeps the items in a storage unit, and then donates them to schools and children’s clubs for their art projects. Additionally she set up a TerraCycle bin for people to recycle razors and toothpaste tubes that other recycling centers won’t take. In October, she and a group of volunteers began to sew old T-shirts and scraps donated by T-shirt shops into bags. Since then, Castillo has given away about 350 bags to community members at Kearney Farmers’ Markets and at a Kearney grocery store, Grand Central Apple Market, 7 W. 25th St. “The people that come back to the (farmers) market with one, it’s like, ‘Yay!’ Because they didn’t just take one, they used it,” Castillo said. Though the Kearney Farmers’ Market is finished for the season, Castillo continues to stock a rack at Apple Market with the T-shirt bags. Volunteers soon will make bags and mats out of plastic sacks. The bags will be given away to anyone who needs them, and the mats will be donated to homeless shelters. Castillo’s next goal is to open a nonprofit brick-and-mortar business called ReUse It Center, where people may donate items or buy items at a low cost for their projects. The space also would house workshop space for people to take part in life skills classes, such as budgeting, meal planning, sewing and mending. Additionally, artisans and small businesses could sell their goods from the location. Earlier this month, Castillo won second place and $500 for the business plan at the University of Nebraska at Kearney’s ninth annual Big Idea business contest. Castillo said she plans to use the money to apply for nonprofit status for the business. A local lawyer and newly appointed ReUse It Center board members are helping Castillo with the paperwork and fundraising, respectively, to start the nonprofit. Through the center, Castillo hopes to raise awareness about how to live sustainably and teach people what happens to loose trash in Kearney. Along the Kearney Canal, Castillo said plastic bags are hanging from the trees. “That’s where it’s going. It’s all spilling out,” she said. “You can’t expect a handful of people to clean up everybody’s mess.”