Apr 26, 2009

Minn. girl recycles glass into birdfeedersBy Elena KibasovaKSTP.com

“Helping nature one glass at a time” is the motto of a fifth grader in southern Minnesota. She seems to have stumbled on a great way to help protect the environment and make money.

It all began when 11-year-old Kennedi Kokesch and her mother Nancy were browsing through a thrift shop and learned unsold glassware was routinely thrown out. Kennedi was outraged.

“It takes a million years for glass to decompose,” Kennedi says.

To prevent the glass from going to a landfill, Kennedi insisted they take home as much as they could carry.

“I said what are you going to do with this junk? And she said, ‘If nothing else, we are going to recycle it’,” Nancy Kokesch said.

So was born a brand new industry called Kenko Company, manufacturers of a variety of unusual and colorful bird feeders built entirely from glass that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill.

Kennedi is the CEO, and her only, unpaid, employee is her mom. The Kokesch residence in western Minnesota is now jam-packed with thousands of old pieces of glass and dishes of all types, shapes, colors and sizes. Kennedi artfully matches three or four objects from the array for gluing together.

“She’s got all of these pre-planned,” Nancy said. “She’s got them set in piles underneath all the furniture.”

Nancy owns a gift shop in nearby New Ulm where, just for fun, she put out some of Kennedi’s creations.

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