Friday, March 29, 2024

Local municipalities wrestle with recycle challenges

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BREWSTER – The City of Chelan recently unveiled a plan to switch to curbside recycle pickups and close its current recycle drop-off facility located along State Route 97A on the north end of town.
Chelan officials estimate that 40 percent of the city’s recycle business comes from outside the local area and curbside service will give the city greater control and economy over its operations.
Chelan also serviced the recycle facility in Manson until that center was closed last June after Chelan city administrators cited misuse of the site and the high cost of its annual maintenance.
Meanwhile the cities of Pateros, Brewster, Bridgeport and Mansfield contend with local recycle issues of their own.
Pateros
At a recent Pateros City Council meeting, City Administrator Jord Wilson unveiled a renovation plan for a triangular chunk of property along E. Industrial Way that includes the city’s two recycle bins. Future plans call for two additional dumpsters that will handle plastics and tin cans said council member George Brady, who serves on the Okanogan County Solid Waste Advisory Council (SWAC).
For a time, overfilling was an issue for the Pateros dumpsters until Okanogan County increased its pickup rate to weekly runs.
‘The county’s doing a pretty good job', Brady said of the more frequent pickups. He remains an active SWAC advocate of curbside recycle pickups.
Bridgeport
Bridgeport mayor Janet Conklin said her city has a contract with the Solid Waste Advisory Committee (SWAC) of Douglas County that provided Bridgeport with grant funds to build its sorting center.
The Bridgeport center is located near the public works building at the 1000 block of Jefferson Avenue. The center is open from 9-11 a.m. on the first and third Thursdays and Saturdays of every month. The facility takes cardboard, aluminum. steel cans, newspaper, all white paper, and No. 2 high density polyethylene HDPE like opaque milk jugs.
“We don’t take glass,” said Conklin, who volunteers at the recycle center. “The crushers are so expensive.”
Owing to that expense, few places now take glass.
“Our recyclers are just not recycling as much, and I’ve been trying to talk SWAC into having programs in schools to educate younger kids about recycling,” said Conklin who noted that one of the Bridgeport Middle School teachers and her husband bring regular deliveries of school paper to the recycle center.
Conklin also cited a lack of state funding support.
“The state is drastically cutting back on grant funding but creating more unfunded mandates,” Conklin said.
Two years ago, Bridgeport hosted a free tire campaign to help reduce the numbers of tires accumulating there. The effort was so successful that SWAC hauled away three trailer loads of rubber before the collection ended.
Mansfield
Mansfield’s long-time mayor Tom Snell serves with Bridgeport mayor Conklin on Douglas County’s 10-member Solid Waste Advisory Council (SWAC). Everyone in town pitches in when they recycle since each does his own sorting into the appropriate bins.
Mansfield’s Community Recycling Center located on Railroad Avenue is open from 9 a.m. to noon on the second and fourth Wednesday and second Saturday of each month. It accepts cardboard and paper, metal, including clean scrap metal, P.E.T. No. 1 and H.D.P.E. No. 2 plastics, batteries, tires and wheels (w/fee), and metal appliances ($20 fee with Freon).
Brewster
The City of Brewster continues to consider a new site to accommodate the return of recycle bins from Okanogan County Public Works. The cardboard and multi-purpose bins were pulled by the county last year citing misuse by residents and unauthorized use by non-residential parties.
Brewster’s Director of Public Works, Lee Webster, said the County’s recycle funding grant stipulated use by residential customers only, not commercial or business entities. The county has since agreed to reinstall the bins once the city can designate a suitable site for access and monitoring.
Potential sites include near the Brewster schools and next to the Fire Department. However, the district needs to use the space for increased parking for the new school building and the volunteers’ cars take up the available space at the Fire Hall whenever a fire calls them out.
The best spot for the dumpsters appear to back at the original site between W. Keller Avenue and N. Bridge Street on a city easement.  
Brewster contracts with Omak-based Sunrise Disposal whose owner, Dick Howe, is a member of the Okanogan County SWAC. Howe has been lobbying the county for single stream recycling where all recyclables go into one cart. That way, existing trucks can still be used to pick up the extra carts.
“The problem with the Okanogan facility is that it isn’t big enough to accommodate a conveyor fed baler,” said Howe who sees a disposal fee increase coming.
“Okanogan County charges $74 a ton now,” said Howe, “When they opened the central landfill years ago it was $74 a ton and the margin at the end of the year keeps getting smaller.”
Howe said another problem is a lack of grant funding.
“When the state mandated all these rules they would provide community development block grants (CDBG),” said Howe. “Now, all those funds have dried up.”
The prices of many recyclables are also down from previous levels.
“I know of three private agencies around town who would buy aluminum cans and run them to Spokane and make a little extra,” said Howe. “The market is down right now so they aren’t doing it.”
Okanogan County used to pay for recyclables, but the market has dropped too low for the county to continue that practice, Howe added. “Cardboard and paper have held pretty steady, but they are also going down.”
Brewster’s Clerk/Treasurer Missy Ruiz expressed her frustration over the lack of recycle options in the county and the difficulty that conscientious citizens face trying to maintain a recycle routine. She also strongly endorses a curbside system.
“We all need it and we want it,” Ruiz said.

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