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WORLAND — The Washakie County Solid Waste Disposal District is hoping with the new year to help educate Worland area residents about ways to properly recycle cardboard and office paper.

Washakie County Solid Waste Disposal District manager Mike Seigfried said, “Currently what we’re recycling is corrugated cardboard, office paper, and shredded office paper.”

The landfill, northwest of Worland off of 15 Mile Road, bundles, or bales the recyclables that they receive, and ships them to either California or Washington, according to Seigfried.

Seigfried said that the places you can drop off the recyclables include the green cardboard-only dumpsters that are scattered around Worland, and the ones at Ten Sleep town hall.

“There’s a lot of them, the, what we call ‘parking lot dumpsters’, like at Blair’s, and IGA, both have the green cardboard-only dumpsters,” Seigfried said. There’s approximately 80 recycling dumpsters around Worland.

The landfill is having a number of problems regarding improper recyclables. “Basically, when we checked everything this winter, we were receiving 30-40 percent trash in the recycle dumpsters instead of cardboard or recyclable papers.”

The material is all hand sorted by three or four people. “Basically, from the moment the material is in the dumpster, and rides in the recycling truck up to the landfill, we pack it in the landfill building and dump it on the floor. The three, or sometimes four, people who hand sort through all of that, pick out all the recyclable materials, then the rest of it goes in the landfill.” Seigfried said.

“We’re currently putting metal lids on them (the dumpsters) to stop the people from putting trash in them.” Seigfried is hoping this will educate the people to put their material in the correct dumpsters.

“We definitely don’t make money with the recycling program,” Seigfried said, when asked about the cost of recycling. “Part of the problem of putting a cost on it is because we use the landfill employees to do the recycling.”

He added, “The landfill sells the cardboard for about $100 per ton, but there are definitely a lot of costs in putting together one ton of cardboard.”

NEW LIDS, NEW ISSUES

“One problem that I’ve seen around town, that people have brought to my attention, is that the new lids that we’re putting on, are stopping people from breaking down their boxes, so they’re just tossing them on the ground next to the dumpsters, and that’s technically littering.”

Seigfried pleads with residents of the county to start breaking down their cardboard boxes and placing them in the green cardboard-only dumpsters, to prevent from mishaps such as the boxes blowing away.

The landfill prefers to keep the green dumpsters cardboard only, and says to take office paper and shredded paper to the landfill personally, to prevent the paper from getting wet and soggy, which makes it impossible to recycle it.

Seigfried recommends people take their old newspapers New Hope Humane Society, who uses it for the animals.

“We don’t do the newspaper, or the magazines anymore. There just isn’t a demand for it. We can’t get rid of it.” Seigfried said.

Worland Public Works Superintendent Brian Burky said there is a 1,200-to-80 ratio for the trash to recyclables dumpster bins within Worland

“Dealing with garbage is a big expense,” Burky said. “And the more that people recycle, the better it is for them, because that helps us keep sanitation rates lower. The more garbage we have to haul, the more expensive it is. So if people can peel stuff off and recycle it, in the end, they’re saving themselves, they’re saving everybody money.”

Trash issues

Burky asked residents to “please read the stickers on the trash dumpsters. You have to put stuff that fits inside the dumpster. Please don’t go putting furniture or anything like that in the dumpsters. It’s very expensive for us to remove. There are other things that are toxic, such as biohazards. But we have a sticker on every dumpster to tell them what they can and can’t put in.”

The costs are from people who live in the city, who have to pay the sanitation fee, while the city does get charged for the landfill.

The landfill and city both hope for people to start paying more attention for the sake of the earth, and their wallets.