Urbana's original Dumpster diver turns trash into treasure

URBANA – Jim Payne is a one-man recycling program.

He walks the streets each morning, as he has for 25 years, sifting through your trash for the treasures within.

Payne is waging a private crusade to stop the Earth – or at least his corner of Champaign-Urbana – from becoming the desolate, trash-strewn planet in the Disney film "WALL-E" (which he liked, despite having no use for TV).

Also on this date

• Local fire departments turning to students, others for help
• A closer look at the eight new principals in Champaign
• Small hospitals opting for new facility over renovation
• Kirby Hospital taking steps to serve Monticello long into future
• Obituaries