County aims to promote recycling to slow filling of landfill

Lincoln County is making some timely strides in improving its recycling programs — timely because in the next five to six years, the county will need to come up with approximately $2 million to create a new cell in its landfill.

As part of the county’s commitment to improving its recycling programs, Health Department Director Kathi Hooper began a class in August through the University of Washington to complete her public health management certificate. Her year-long project will focus on recycling.

“There is a lot of support for recycling,” Hooper said. “And grants for equipment are usually easy to find. It’s the maintenance and collection that costs us money, so it would be great to see the usage grow so we could reinvest that into the program.”

The main benefit of recycling, Hooper said, is slowing the filling of space in the landfill.

“The more waste that is recycled, the less ends up in landfill,” said landfill manager Bryan Alkire, who asks all residents to think twice before leaving items at the landfill.

“If you think someone might be able to use it, even as parts, take it to the thrift store,” he said. “Because once it’s inside our gate, we can’t pass it on, it’s bound for landfill.”

The county has already seen a jump in the amount of recycling received. In 2015, it processed 179.57 tons of recycling, including plastic, paper, steel and aluminum, cardboard and e-waste; in 2016, the amount was 243.9 tons, according to figures provided by Hooper.

The value of recyclable goods changes with the market, and Lincoln County’s recycling is brokered by a third party, with the plastic often finding its highest value in China.

“We do make some money on scrap metal, and cardboard profits fund our plastics program,” Alkire said. “But in the end we usually break even.”

Hooper said the county is planning more outreach and education programs on recycling over the next one to two years, as well as a focus group to determine barriers and improve business access to recycling centers.

“Often, a business’s waste is 90 percent cardboard, which is extremely recyclable,” Hopper said.

While other counties charge a fee to visit the landfill or use the recycling centers, Hooper and Alkire look to Bonner County as an example.

“They have an extremely successful voluntary recycling program, which we are looking to emulate,” Hooper said, adding that people moving to Lincoln County seem impressed with the counties free recycling programs.

Another step the department is taking to improve the length of time each landfill cell will take to fill to capacity is to cover the landfill overnight with a tarp instead of covering new waste with dirt every day.

“We just started that last summer, and we’ve (already) seen improvements,” Alkire said. “We calculated that before the change up to 30 percent of the content was dirt.”

As some waste breaks down in landfill, old sites settle and Alkire revisits them.

“It’s called differential settling, because different parts of the pile break down faster than others,” said Alkire. “So I’ll go and poke some extra waste into the holes to fill them, which helps stretch our current sites further.”

The landfill expansion will likely bring a fee increase this year for county residents, the first of its kind since 2008.