Recycling drop-off sites up and running

POLSON — Recycling has never been easier for Lake County residents.

Last Wednesday, Lake County Solid Waste unveiled its third recycling drop off center, this one located near the Kerr Dam fields in Polson. Grants totalling about $50,000 from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), combined with county and city funding, allowed for the establishment of this and two additional drop off sites, the first on the Salish Kootenai College campus in Pablo and the second near Harvest Foods in Ronan. Once the bugs are worked out, Mark Nelson, manager of the Lake County Solid Waste District, hopes to expand the service countywide.

The new, large bins are available for residential use, but Nelson would like to get more recycling services for businesses as well. He said that with more recycling and less garbage that needs to be shipped to Missoula, the county and its taxpayers could save about $40 per ton.

“Our goal is to operate this so that if it’s not making money it’s at least not losing too much money. We can take it out of the waste stream for less than we could bury it, particularly if we get paid for some of these products,” Nelson said.

It’s important for residents to sort their recyclables into the proper bins because, he added, Lake County collects the materials you drop off and bales them for shipment to the facilities where they are recycled into new products. The county is paid based on the quality of the bales it produces. Better quality (less contaminated) recyclables yield better prices. With limited resources, there isn’t time or personnel power to sort every type of recyclable material after drop off.

So remember, quality matters and sorting reduces contamination, ensuring that valuable resources do not end up in the landfill, Nelson said.

E-rase your E-waste

Last Friday, the Lake County Transfer Station was buzzing with activity as citizens dropped off more than 20,000 pounds of electronic waste from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. It was the station’s third annual E-rase your E-waste event, and it succeeded in collecting about as much e-waste as the two previous years combined.

“It was quite a bit,” Nelson said of the collection, which included 18 pallets and four large televisions, among other big items. “We had more than they ordered trucks to haul.”

Nelson employed the help of his crew, volunteers from the CSKT Tribal Natural Resources Department and the crew from Yellowstone E-Waste Solutions, the group that hauled the waste to Billings for sorting. Most of it, Nelson said, will ultimately end up in California to be smelted.

“It only happens once a year, but it’s a great opportunity for people to recycle their e-waste for little cost,” Nelson said.