Towns say costs too high for single stream recycling

About 25 representatives from Rosalia, St. John, Endicott, Colton, Oakesdale, the county and waste haulers, attended a meeting Oct. 23 in Rosalia to discuss single stream recycling.

The meeting was organized by Judi Dunn-Gray, county recycling and waste reduction manager, who reported before the session that small towns in the county are having difficulties with the frequency of collections and charges for the hauls.

Although small towns want to recycle, the cost is too high for the new single stream recycling, placing all recyclables in one bin instead of sorting out materials, that was introduced last summer.

Small town representatives said they can’t afford what the haulers want to charge for picking up recyclables and don’t know how to handle the costs. One mayor said it would cost $200 to $300 a month and his small town can’t afford to pay it or charge citizens for it.

“It’s not just a Rosalia problem, it’s a rural problem,” said moderator Jim Wavada, county solid waste planner and state Department of Ecology environmental planner. “The counties on the coast are having similar conversations now. It kind of represents every small community in the state.”

Attendees agreed that people want to recycle.

“Recycling works very well and residents are in favor of recycling, but I hear all these stories of all these people dumping all the garbage,” Oakesdale Mayor Dennis Palmer said. “If we go to single stream, everyone’s going to dump their garbage.”

St. John Mayor K.B. Trunkey said so far it’s not costing the town anything.

“I think because we didn’t charge some citizens, it gave a false sense that it’s not going to cost anything,” Wavada said. “We’re cutting off a free thing and now people are going to pay their fair share.”

County Public Works Director Mark Storey said that the county’s not making any money from recycling.

The county received $10.82 a ton but it cost $30 a ton to get it processed.

It goes by container to Spokane, then is shipped to Seattle and then it goes to international markets.

David Nails, Colfax solid waste operations manager, reported that he’s seeing only 1.5 percent garbage, with 10.9 percent glass.

Costs run $144 just in fuel from Oakesdale to Colfax, one of the haulers said.

Garfield has its own district and does its own collecting and curbside recycling.

In Colton, the school district pairs with the city of Lewiston. Uniontown brings recycling to Colton and in turn, Colton takes its yard waste to Uniontown.

The summit focused on: the county’s single stream recycling is in crisis, particularly in the rural towns with no curbside collection and rural communities face extensive transportation costs to get recyclables to distant recyclers; rural schools can do education and collection with support from towns that provide collection areas; develop partnerships to address recycling.

After discussion, several points were highlighted.

• Schools - recycling needs to be easy to manage and accessible.

• Citizens - contamination from garbage included; cost increases not communicated well.

• Waste Haulers - subsidized recycling not covering costs; fuel and labor costs rising; urban communities have a different set of needs from rural communities.

• Communities and towns - Can’t afford to police sites to prevent garbage dumping.

• County - must research state guidelines on collection funding models subsidizing recycling programs; materials need to cover costs of programs.

Grey said she will take the lists, try to turn them into solutions and at an upcoming meeting she will introduce the solutions.