Reduce, reuse, recycle

Students 'adopt' a recycling site

Recycling and county landfill folks ran across a savvy bunch of third-graders at Lakeside on Monday.

In a group visit to the Lakeside green bin site, Waste Not Project director Mayre Flowers discovered that Bonita Preston's 18 Lakeside Elementary students already know a good amount about putting garbage in its place.

That, they knew, is in the landfill - not the recycling bins.

As part of Waste Not's Adopt-A-Site Project, Flowers brought along Flathead County Solid Waste Director Dave Prunty and Valley Recycling owner Bob Morrow to visit with the students.

They showed which plastics can and cannot be recycled. They talked about paper and cardboard.

And they gave some facts and figures to show that recycling and trash disposal are a big part of the picture in the Flathead.

In the process, students got a little more involved in the effort to educate other students and adults - particularly those who stuffed a mattress and a turkey carcass into the blue recycling bins not long back.

The class got a first-hand lesson in just how that happens.

As they gathered next to the bin, discussing the plastic that can go in there, there was a loud crash from the other side as somebody dumped glass into the compartment.

Glass is not recyclable in the Flathead now and will have to be sorted out as trash when it gets to Valley Recycling.

"We see all kinds of things in there - garbage, clothing," Morrow told the class. "We have to sort through that by hand, pick through each and every piece."

But if garbage goes in with recyclables, the students learned, it all can become trash.

Once they're lumped into the garbage category, the milk jugs, aluminum cans and newspapers that well-intentioned people pitch into the recycling bin can add unnecessarily to the trash mountain at the landfill.

Such garbage accounted for 30 percent of the material in the blue bins last year.

The Waste Not Project, in its 11th year of collaboration with Flathead County Solid Waste District, Flathead Valley Community College and Citizens for a Better Flathead, wants to put an end to that by drawing a definitive line between what goes in the green bins and what goes in the blue bins.

Learning to distinguish recyclables from refuse was the point of the visit to the county site on Blacktail Mountain Road, with attention focused on Valley Recycling's multi-compartment blue bin at the entrance.

It's one of seven such sites in the county.

"Do you guys recycle paper at school?" Flowers asked the group crowded around her folding table heaped with materials that can and cannot be recycled.

"Yup!" came the chorus back at her.

She showed them butter cartons and individual-serving juice boxes. They already knew that the waxy coating and foil lining boot both containers out of the recyclable category.

"Paper bags you can take back to the grocery store, and you can recycle this envelope," she said, holding up one of two manila envelopes. "But what's wrong with this one?"

They pointed at the padded mailer in her hand and called out, "It has styrofoam in it!"

Morrow was impressed as he watched them continue to volunteer the do's and don'ts of recycling.

"I'm surprised at how well-educated they are," Morrow said, observing from the side of the outdoor "classroom."

Last year, 100,000 tons of garbage went to the county landfill, Prunty said. Much, he knows, could have been recycled.

For its part, Valley Recycling went through 327 tons of recycling from all its bins - Morrow said he maintains five in the county and another five in the cities. About 60,000 pounds of cardboard go through Valley Recycling every week, he said.

The county hires Valley Recycling to collect and recycle materials. Money from selling the material helps offset the cost of the program.

Even though it typically costs the county more to run the program than it gets back from selling the material, Prunty said it's worth it. In fiscal year 2003, every ton of garbage processed at the landfill cost $17.60; recyclables costs just $7.80 per ton to process.

Now in its second year, the Adopt-A-Site Project is the Waste Not Project's effort to draw local schools into a recycling ethic.

Educate the children, goes their philosophy, and it probably will reach back to the parents at home.

"We are really active in recycling at our school," Preston said.

"We've been recycling in my class for three years," she said. As they recycle, the children learn what kinds of paper can and cannot go in the bins. "This year we got plastic recycling tubs in every classroom," donated by the PTA.

Parents haul paper away for recycling. Staffers pitch in, too - Doug Chestnut brings the school's cardboard to the Lakeside blue bin, and Mike Barrigan takes care of recycling the aluminum cans.

"It's great for the kids," Preston said. "They see everybody needs to help, everybody needs to care."

To step up their commitment, the class adopted the Lakeside recycling bin. They will monitor it for proper use and return in April for a Master Recycler training session with Waste Not Project assistant Sally Kelly.

Flowers said her group is targeting a similar effort at schools in the cities next to the remaining Valley Recycling sites - Columbia Falls, Coram, Kila, Creston and Bigfork.

Flowers and Prunty are taking the next step now.

A survey went out to every public and private school in the Flathead about a month ago to learn about their recycling and energy reduction methods.

As results come in over the coming weeks, Flowers will gauge interest in potential help in getting recycling bins at the schools, installing energy-saving lights, and other measures to reduce, reuse and recycle.

She will go to the Solid Waste Board with the data, hoping to team up with Prunty in pitching a small grant program for schools. Accountability will be factored in to be sure it's really helping reduce the volume of garbage going to the landfill.

"It's quite possible," Prunty said of the grant program's chances. "Our goal is to very actively promote recycling. But we've got to be fiscally responsible, too."

Flowers is optimistic.

"We'll first gauge the interest by the schools," she said. "Then we'll develop a program. We're not even scratching the surface of what we could be recycling."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com