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WORLAND –Soon, Ten Sleep residents will be able to recycle many different items, thanks to the resourcefulness of a handful of Ten Sleep residents named Renew U Recycling, gaining the support of the Washakie County Conservation District, The Town of Ten Sleep, The Ten Sleep FFA chapter and the Ten Sleep transfer station.

For the past couple of years, Ten Sleep residents have been able to recycle their corrugated cardboard, newspapers and office paper in a special recycling trailer located near the Ten Sleep Town Hall. That trailer will be used to transport additional recyclables since the Washakie County Solid Waste Disposal District No. 1 has placed two dumpsters where the recycling trailer used to be to collect the corrugated cardboard and office paper. “The trailer was there for cardboard, magazines, paper and things like that for Ten Sleep. Then when it was full the town would contact an individual and we would pay them to haul it to Worland and back. The Worland landfill was having problems getting the trailer unloaded when they would haul it over there because it all has to be hand unloaded and the trailer was having to be left in Worland because they couldn’t unload it as soon as Ten Sleep showed up. So they asked us is we would mind and they also asked the Ten Sleep Mayor [Jack Haggerty] if he would mind if they hauled dumpsters over to Ten Sleep and then their truck would go empty the dumpsters, to just do away with the trailer because the trailer was causing issues. So then Amy [Truman] who is on the town council wanted to start some sort of recycling event to where they could take plastics and things like that and then haul them to Powell, so she asked my board if she could use the trailer for that use, because we were going to discontinue the use of the trailer,” Washakie County Conservation District Director Tori Dietz explained.

Renew U Recycling volunteer Megan Truman stated that the group is planning on having an educational public meeting at the Ten Sleep Senior Center at 6 p.m. on Nov. 9 but that that date has yet to be confirmed by the director of the center. Interested residents can also check on the progress and learn about what is happening on the Renew U Recycling Facebook and Instagram pages set up by FFA member Zane Cooper.

Truman stated that the recycling trailer would be hauled to either Buffalo or Powell, depending on the weather, once every two months by the Ten Sleep FFA members. After the first gathering Truman said, “That the FFA kids are going to facilitate a once a week pick up, like on Fridays, up by the town hall where people could bring their recycling so that they didn’t have to hold on to it for two months.”

“Once they are up and running, which they plan on doing every other month, the Ten Sleep School FFA will haul the existing trailer that we were using for cardboard, to Powell and back after the event and the conservation district will reimburse them the government mileage rate [.535 cents per mile] plus a discretionary hauling fee of 15 cents per mile,” Dietz said.

The first gathering is planned for Dec. 2, at the Ten Sleep transfer station. “We will do it at the landfill in case people bring things that can’t be recycled,” Truman said. “Right now we are talking about the stuff that we would take is: No. 1 and No. 2 plastics, grocery bags, newspapers, tin cans and paperboard [non corrugated cardboard] but that’s tentative. The yearbook class at the high school here is going to conduct a survey at the first gathering because we could potentially take glass; there are other things that we could take if people have an interest,” she added.

If the program garners enough interest a permanent solution may be in the works. “The Ten Sleep transfer station has offered to do what they can do and we are having our first gathering there and if this gets going and it starts to seem like people are interested, the woman who mans the transfer station [Holly Redland] said that we could potentially set something permanently up there, where people don’t have to wait for schedule times to recycle,” Truman said.