New recycling site opens in Kalispell

A new recycling drop-off site opened this week at Kalispell Medical Equipment in Kalispell.

The site replaces the former recycling site behind Super 1 Foods in Kalispell and is just one street over from Super 1.

Bins are located in Kalispell Medical Equipment’s back parking lot off Fourth Avenue East North. Recyclers are asked to use the Fourth Avenue access only.

A joint collaboration between Valley Recycling and Kalispell Medical Equipment, the new recycling site will provide three covered bins with openings for placing only No. 1 and No. 2 plastics and metal in one bin.

All paper, including newspaper, magazines and office paper, may be placed in a second bin, and corrugated cardboard, brown paper bags and paper-board or cereal-box type cardboard goes in the third bin.

Last year Flathead County gave up its contract for blue-bin recycling at Super 1 Foods and Albertsons grocery stores in Kalispell as it downsized its recycling program.

Valley Recycling kept the bins at the grocery stores, but Super 1 recently had to close the site to meet the store’s “growing needs,” according to a press release from the WasteNot Project, a collaborative countywide education program.

The press release advised recyclers to follow instructions on the bins carefully.

“Never place any items on the ground. Never place plastic bags or plastic wrappings (they jam recycling equipment), food soiled containers like pizza boxes or paper plates, waxed containers or glass in these recycling bins,” the advisory noted.

Glass and plastic grocery bags can be recycled elsewhere in the Flathead Valley.

According to Valley Recycling, the contamination rate in the bins from non-locally recyclable materials is not improving and remains a constant problem and revenue drain for the company.

The worst contamination is from people placing plastic bags and plastic wrappings, boxes, glass, trash and plastics other than No. 1 and No. 2 in the recycling bins.

“It is vital to remember that our recycling centers are businesses and if they can’t make enough of a modest profit to cover their expenses, they simply can’t exist, said Mayre Flowers with the WasteNot Project. “We all want recycling, but we will only keep and grow recycling options in the Flathead when we all pull together and only put the right items in the right bins.

“People sometimes say they are leaving materials like glass or other plastics because they think it will make the recycling company start to offer more recycling options like other cities, but it simply doesn’t work that way,” Flowers said.

“The public needs to know that we have great leadership in the Flathead recycling firms, which support over 50 jobs in the Flathead. These recycling firms, local governments through the County Solid Waste Board, and programs like the WasteNot Project are working intensely to try to expand recycling options in the Flathead, but we can only do this when we find strategies that pay for themselves without raising taxes. We hope the public will go the extra step and sort materials for recycling correctly.”

Visit the WasteNot Project website at www.wastenotproject.org to learn about the many items that can be recycled locally.