County recycling program to consolidate

Blue recycling bins will remain at the Columbia Falls green box site as the Flathead County Solid Waste District consolidates its recycling program and phases out recycling bins at four green box sites starting Jan. 1.

Blue recycling bins also will remain at the Creston, Somers and the county landfill waste collection sites, but recycling no longer will be an option at the Ashley Lake, Bigfork, Coram or Lakeside green box sites.

Recycling containers will be re-installed for Bigfork once a new green box site is completed by next fall, according to Flathead County public works director Dave Prunty.

The Solid Waste Board approved a recycling contract with Evergreen Disposal/Valley Recycling at its Dec. 16 meeting. Prunty said the board couldn’t come to an agreement with North Valley Refuse in earlier contract talks because the company wanted recyclables specifically separated.

In accordance with the new contract, two blue 30-yard recycling bins will be placed at the Columbia Falls, Creston, Somers and county landfill sites. One bin will be designated for No. 1 and No. 2 plastics along with aluminum and steel cans. The second bin will be for all paper products, including newspaper, office paper and cardboard.

Prunty said the problem with separating plastic, cans, cardboard and paper in the past is that some compartments filled faster than others, forcing the county to haul recycling loads more often.

“We were hauling a lot of air because the bins weren’t full,” he said.

Each recycling site also will have its own cardboard compactor. The Columbia Falls collection site has had a compactor for some time. About $76,000 was spent for compactors at the other three sites.

The county is paring down the number of recycling sites to save money. The program has cost more than $400,000 since 1998. With a cardboard compactor in place at Columbia Falls, the hauling cost is $30 to $40 per ton for recyclables compared to $250 per ton at the other rural sites, Prunty said.

Earlier this year, the county gave up its contract for blue-bin recycling at Super 1 Foods and Albertson’s grocery stores in Kalispell, but Valley Recycling maintained the recycling bins at those locations.

Mayre Flowers, director of the collaborative WasteNot Project, said that although there will be fewer drop-off sites for recycling, the savings will help retain the county’s program.

“For Flathead County, the bottom line is that recycling will almost always cost more than simply burying this material at the landfill, given the costs for collecting, processing and shipping recycling materials out of state to centers that can turn these material into new products,” Flowers said.