The volunteer-driven environmental group is launching a capital campaign to improve recycling center in Rockford.

When some of us grew up in the greater Rockford area, burning the family's trash in the backyard "burning barrel" was common. The smoke smelled of burning plastic, paper and garbage. The only thing people separated out was glass bottles. Often, those were buried in the back of the yard or taken to "the dump."

We don't do that anymore. We've evolved as a society and have begun, belatedly, to realize that the world is filling up with other people's garbage. The Pacific Ocean now contains a massive patch of plastic bits from the Far East floating just below the surface. Other islands of plastic are floating in the Atlantic and Indian oceans

Too much of our trash still goes into vast landfills like the two "Mount Trashmore" monsters south of Rockford on Illinois 251. When those are filled in a couple of decades, where will we put the garbage?

That's why, now more than ever, we need the good people of Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful to remind us to recycle and to take our recyclable goods. If you are a Rockford resident in a single-family home, a duplex or a fourplex, you can — and should — already be using your blue recycling can.

More than 51,000 people in the greater Rockford area do not have curbside recycling opportunities, however, and KNIB is helping to give them recycling options at their two facilities, 4665 Hydraulic Road in Rockford and 13125 N. Second St. in Roscoe. These are staffed by volunteers.

Every spring around Earth Day, KNIB assembles thousands of volunteers to scour the roadsides to collect the detritus that has collected over the years — much of it thrown out of cars, hurled from the backs of pickup trucks, or discarded by careless shoppers who leave their plastic bags in the parking lots of big box stores.

We could make the volunteers' job much easier — and they could cover more territory — if people would just be polite and remember that when they litter even a little bit, it  degrades our neighborhoods, our roadsides, our cities and countryside.

KNIB is embarking on plans to improve its Hydraulic Road building, which currently is an unheated, unimproved "shell."

The organization plans to raise nearly $900,000 so it can buy the building outright, turn part of the interior into modern offices, a training and conference room and a drop-off recycling center, and improve the parking lot.

KNIB is the kind of organization that gets maximum bang for the buck. It has just two paid employees and relies on volunteers and donors for the vast majority of what it does. In 2016, KNIB collected $293,940, only 17 percent of which came from government grants.

We think KNIB does a great service to the greater Rockford area, one that encourages all people to clean up their environment, one bag at a time.

To contribute to KNIB's capital campaign, go to the group's website at knib.org.

Give a hoot! Don't pollute!