Free e-waste disposal coming to an end
<p>Sitting at a warehouse at Kootenai Disposal, a truckload of electronic waste sits, ready to be shipped off to a facility in California. Starting next year, the disposal won’t be able to take in the electronic waste year-round for free. (Bethany Rolfson/TWN)</p>
The free electronic waste program at Kootenai Disposal will be discontinued in a few weeks.
Earth Day earlier this year kicked off a program at Kootenai Disposal where people could come and dispose of their e-waste everyday.
All of this was possible because their shipping was paid for by an anonymous sponsor. However, Jennifer Nelson, the co-founder of the program, said that since their “free-shipping” contract wasn’t renewed for 2017, they won’t be able to store the e-waste for shipments at the Libby Landfill.
Karen Repine and Nelson started the “E-rase Your E-Waste” annual events in 2009, and kept the events going from 2010-2011. During those years, people had to pay 40 cents per pound, but from 2014-2016 they started accepting the e-waste for free.
Bryan Alkire, manager at Libby Landfill, began stockpiling electronic material coming to the landfill and the Eureka refuse site, allowing the program to go on everyday, not just on an event-by-event basis.
The program was a collaborative effort between Lincoln County Health Department, Collective Recyclers, Kootenai Disposal and All Systems Go, Kootenai Disposal, Collective Recyclers and volunteers from the Boy Scouts, the Libby Middle/Senior High Options Class and the occasional private citizen.
Since the Recycle Eureka joined in 2014 and All Systems Go in Troy joined in 2015, they provide this service for free to most of the county. Nelson said that some people have even driven from Kalispell to the disposal site for their free services.
The e-waste is kept at the Lincoln County landfill where people can go and drop off their recyclable electronic waste, which include cell phones, computers, laptops, printers, fax machines, gaming consoles, televisions, DVD Players, VCRs, telephones, digital cameras, radios and microwave ovens.
Those electronics are placed on pallets and stored in a warehouse at the landfill, where they eventually are shipped off to ECS Refining in Stockton Calif, who officially recycle the electronics.
According to Nelson, since 2014, they have collected and shipped approximately 80 tons or 160,000 lbs of electronics for recycling.
Because the shipping cost is so high, they won’t be able to afford to keep sending trucks down to Calif. throughout the year.
“We have been so fortunate to be part of this program and have a sponsor to pay the shipping bill for our electronic waste collections,” Nelson said. “It has allowed us to collect this material for free and recycle this material, keeping literally tons of electronics and the toxins they contain out of our landfill. We always knew that the sponsorship might come to an end, we just hoped that it wouldn’t.”