Recycling options hashed out at county workshop
The Flathead County Commissioners and the Flathead County Solid Waste Board were looking for answers at their joint workshop on Aug. 20 because there seems to be consensus on the main goal — finding a way to keep a countywide recycling program in the Flathead. That’s also the community consensus, based on sizable public input.
The economic recession has been tough on commodities prices, while energy prices have stayed high. That means the recycling program, which made a little money during the first decade of its 15 years, has been in the red for the past five years, Flathead County public works director Dave Prunty said.
“The reality is that the District will need to pay for the continuation of this program, if it is to continue,” Prunty said in his report for the workshop. “It is highly unlikely that recycling in the immediate future will pay for itself when markets for the material are hundreds of miles from the Flathead. We have done this for the vast majority of its existence, and this is not uncommon for recycling programs throughout the country not located near industrial centers.”
Dollars and sense
Since 1998, the county recycling program has lost about $493,000. Meanwhile, the county’s contract with Valley Recycling to take recyclables from blue bins at 14 sites around the county ended in January. The contract has been extended on a month-by-month basis adding up to $130,000 so far this year, Prunty said.
Valley Recycling was also the only company to respond to the county’s request for proposals this spring. The county was hoping some restructuring would help reduce costs. Among the options considered were reducing the blue box sites to four primary sites — the landfill along with the Columbia Falls, Somers and Creston green-box sites — or to those four along with the two Kalispell sites at Albertsons and Super 1 Foods.
“Valley said they didn’t find any significant reduction with this revised bin configuration,” Prunty said.
In their proposal, Valley Recycling said it would cost $50,944 a year for recycling at the four primary sites, or $107,704 for the four sites plus Ashley Lake, Bigfork, Coram and Lakeside. Inflation would increase those costs in six years to $57,371 and $121,292 respectively.
The recycling program is important to Valley Recycling, company manager Josh Brown told the workshop, and they estimated costs as low as they could. About 60 percent of the company’s recycling stream comes from the county contract, Prunty pointed out.
Tax raise
The commissioners have publicly said they won’t support a $2 increase to the current $80.73 per year solid waste tax county property owners pay. The increase would help pay for the recycling program’s losses. Some members of the Solid Waste Board and many recycling supporters in the county say the $2 tax increase is not much for such a worthy program.
“People ask me, what about a combination of cost savings and a tax increase. Lots of people say they’re willing to pay $2 more,” board member Alan Ruby said, asking the commissioners to elaborate on their position.
But another Solid Waste Board member, Dr. Wayne Miller, said he’s reversed positions after studying the problem’s many facets.
“I was upset at first to hear the $2 increase was unacceptable to the commissioners,” he said. But after several hearings and learning about all the costs involved in recycling, he learned that “we need to fix the overall system.”
Prunty agreed, noting that there are cost increases across the entire solid waste program, not just recycling. Board member Hank Olson also agreed, noting that the recycling program has been funded by other parts of the budget.
More options
Two more options posed by Prunty illustrate how recycling costs are tied to the rest of the county’s solid waste program. A cardboard-compacting machine at the Columbia Falls green-box site has reduced the cost of hauling by reducing the number of trips. The machine, however, needs to be manned.
But the county has reduced costs by manning the Columbia Falls site, Prunty said. The county doesn’t have to pay independent contractors to lock and unlock the gates or to clean a manned site, and oversize junk — sofas, TVs, tires and construction debris — that is supposed to be taken to the landfill isn’t dropped off with the appliances.
Prunty provided figures to support that case, especially by contrasting the green-box sites at Bigfork and Columbia Falls. The county’s boom truck made 24 trips to Bigfork to haul away oversize trash so far this year compared to zero for Columbia Falls. On the other hand, Prunty noted that cardboard compactors could cost $60,000 per green box site, and it might take several years to get them up and running.
“The compactor solution may not be the low-cost solution, but it will provide other benefits,” Prunty said.
The board also responded to a point raised by Rep. Jerry O’Neil, R-Columbia Falls. O’Neil suggested allowing the public to “Dumpster dive” as a way to help the county reduce the recycling volume. The problem is that these freelancers are taking the valuable items — especially steel appliances — away from the county and reducing revenue for the recycling program, Miller said.
Countywide curbside recycling is not recommended because it hasn’t worked well in other Montana counties, Prunty noted, but closing the No. 1 and 2 recycling sites in the Flathead — Albertsons and Super 1 Foods in Kalispell — might make sense. Kalispell residents would just need to get used to driving to Valley Recycling or Pacific Steel & Recycling instead, he said. Both companies are in Kalispell.
The commissioners asked Prunty to do some more number crunching and consider continuing the month-to-month contract with fewer sites. Brown said that would put Valley Recycling in a tough spot. He also noted that if the county reduces the number of sites, residents might drop off recyclables at another county site rather than go to a commercial recycler, negating any benefits from reducing the number of sites.