Recycling now easier in
Boundary County
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October 11, 2011 |
Claine Skeen, the superintendent at the Boundary
County Landfill, knows better than most the
value of recycling, and he's never stinted in
his efforts to turn the "trash" that ends up in
our landfill into "treasure."
Following in the footsteps of his predecessor
and mentor, the late Woody Watts, his efforts
have been key to keeping local garbage disposal
affordable and keeping our county landfill
viable, and Claine and his crew recently made a
huge stride that not many in the community yet
recognize.
It's now much easier to recycle here than it has
ever been before.
In the past, people were asked to sort what they
put into the waste stream; paper in one bin,
cardboard in another, tin cans over there,
aluminum cans yon. In short, it wasn't very easy
to do what was necessary to do what was right.
Thanks to Claine's efforts, it's now quite a bit
easier, giving one less excuse for people in
this county not to take advantage of the
opportunities of recycling.
And opportunity it is, even though many of us
don't recognize it, or take advantage.
Were it not for the efforts of the crew at the
landfill, Boundary County could be at the edge
of losing the small community exemption that for
several years, and at great cost, allowed our
landfill to stay open.
Without that exemption, the landfill would have
been closed, by federal edict, our trash would
have been hauled at great cost to taxpayers, to
a sanctioned waste disposal sites far distant,
and the taxpayers of this county would be left
paying the cost to "reclaim" a defunct landfill
that's been proven not to be defunct at all.
Thanks to the efforts of county commissioners
going back to Merle Dinning, Orrin Everhart, Bob
Graham Ron Smith, Kevin Lederhos and Murreleen
Skeen, Claine's mom, Boundary County didn't lose
its landfill exemption and the landfill has
remained open.
Thanks to the hard work of Woody Watts, Claine
Skeen and the people who go to work there each
day in the years since, the landfill is still a
place where all citizens of the county can go to
get rid of what we no longer have use for, at
very little or no cost to county residents.
It's also become more of a place where our trash
becomes a suitable product for those who might
use it.
The people getting rid of the trash don't even
have to travel to the landfill to take advantage
of the opportunities to recycle, as
advantangeous sites capable of handling the flow
of solid waste are conveniently located around
the county; in Naples, at 197 Deep Creek Loop,
in Paradise Valley, at 963 Kootenai Valley Trail
Road, at the junction of Highways 1 and 2.
There's still a little work to do ... cans, both
aluminum and tin, need to be rinsed and you
can't throw just anything in ... no styrofoam or
plastic bags ... but you can now add cardboard,
either corrogated or box board; paper, be it
newspaper, junk mail or magazines, aluminum
cans, tin cans and plastics, one through seven,
such as milk jugs or vinegar bottles, into the
same container ... it's "commingled" recycle.
Glass still needs to be separated, as do plastic
bags. But the number of containers needed at the
household level have been reduced by several,
thanks to the efforts of the people we pay to do
what most of us won't take the time to do for
ourselves.
It does pay.
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