Solid Waste Board halts plastic recycling for a year

The Lincoln Solid Waste Board has decided to pause plastics recycling for one year, starting July 1, 2020 and ending June 30, 2021.

One of the reasons for the move is the COVID pandemic, said Misty Edwards of the Lincoln Solid Waste Board. “We don’t necessarily want the attendants handling plastic,” she said.

Edwards said the larger reason for the pause in recycling is changes in the market. “We don’t have a market for plastics right now. Our plastics used to be grouped together in a co-op and sold to China. China changed what they accept for plastics. We lost our market. We have nobody to buy our commodity.”

The changes to what China accepted happened at least two years ago, said Edwards, and since then, the county has been looking for a solution. In the meantime, plastics have still been accepted at the transfer site, but they’re piling up.

“The attendants have been bailing it and stacking the bails up outside,” said Edwards. But because the county hasn’t been able to sell any of it, the plastic has slowly degraded and the bails have started breaking apart, allowing some of the plastics to blow away.

“I’ve asked the attendants to take the oldest bails and dispose of them,” Edwards said. After that, she said staff will review the bails on a month by month basis to see if anything’s breaking apart.

One of the solutions for plastics recycling is to find another buyer for number 1 and number 2 plastics, but shipping costs are a concern.

“We don’t have any facilities in Montana. We have to pay to ship it somewhere,” said Edwards. “We’re paying for the attendants to handle it, somebody to come up here to transfer it, the processor to process it. Recycling is two-fold. It has environmental impacts and financial impacts.” Edwards added that the county hasn’t seen revenue from plastics recycling for approximately three years.

The LSWB will continue to offer other recycling, said Edwards. This includes aluminum and tin can recycling as well as newspaper and office paper recycling, which can be dropped off in the containers at the Lincoln Senior Center. These materials are taken to Great Falls for recycling as part of the contract with Republic Services. Cardboard and metal recycling continues to be offered at the Lincoln solid waste transfer station.

“We just recycled one of those large containers of aluminum cans,” said Edwards, which happens three-four times per year. The revenue from that was $32.80. Edwards added that the biggest revenue for recycling comes from the metal pile at the transfer station, which earns about $3500 per year.