County navigating cardboard crisis
Recycling cardboard has become increasingly difficult across the country due to global recycling declines. Courtesy image
WALLACE — The Shoshone Board of County Commissioners took an eco-friendly stand earlier this week when they decided to continue on with their full recycling program.
Across the country, local governments are being forced to weigh the costs and benefits of continuing their cardboard recycling programs.
In Shoshone County, MCE Garbage and Recycling has been handling the county’s recycling needs for the past year and has strived to ensure that the county makes as much money as possible off their recycled goods, but now with cardboard returns dropping to roughly $5 per ton (from as high as $100 in some places), the BOCC had to decide if they were going to continue to recycle cardboard or if they were going to ask residents to begin simply adding it to their regular trash.
The reason for the price drop is an international one.
China, formerly the world’s largest importer of trash and recyclables, has slowed way down on accepting most foreign recyclables (including cardboard) last year as part of an effort to crack down on the country’s pollution.
This has crippled the global recycling system and the U.S. is now struggling to figure out what to do with its recycled goods.
As of 2016, China was importing 40 million metric tons of recycled goods annually, according to the United Nations.
The sudden stop has forced a lot of cities to eliminate curbside recycling, as well as slowing down recycling centers on how much intake it can have at a certain time.
Kip McGillivray, owner and operator of MCE Garbage and Recycling has been burning the midnight oil trying to come up with a solution for the county’s cardboard issue, ideas ranging from trying to find a new buyer, or even coming up with a location to store mass quantities of cardboard in hopes that the market makes a rebound.
However, according to the BOCC, Shoshone County’s intake of cardboard (especially during the holiday months) is quite substantial.
“So the question is, what do we do here?” BOCC Commissioner and Chairman Mike Fitzgerald asked. “We could stop the recycling to cut any losses, we could wait it out or we could continue to do what we’re doing because we promised a full recycling program.”
Fortunately for Shoshone County, that answer was an easy one.
McGillivray has been masterful in handling the county’s recycling program, shopping the various goods to differing buyers to make sure that top dollar is received and this past year he helped the county make nearly $40,000 from their recycled metals.
These monies are not part of the county’s annual budget, but are instead extra profit that the county can use to help subsidize the cardboard recycling as it waits out the market.
“We are fortunate to have Kip working hard for us, and we are fortunate that the metals market has held and done well for us,” Fitzgerald said. “We want to continue to do the right thing and keep cardboard out of the waste stream and provide a full recycling program for our residents.”
For tips on what types of cardboard are accepted and other recycling information, contact MCE Garbage and Recycling at 208-753-6322.