School recycling sites won't continue
<p>SHAWN GUST/Press Nick Haas, of Coeur d'Alene, dumps his plastic sacks in a recycling bin Wednesday at the Solid Waste Department of Kootenai County transfer station. The department is planning to reduce the number of drop sites at local schools as a way of saving funding.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - Lesson learned: School spots just aren't as productive.
The Kootenai County Board of Commissioners won't renew recycling contracts with three school districts, meaning many of the recycling containers outside Coeur d'Alene, Post Falls and Rathdrum schools won't be around after June.
It also means the county can save approximately $170,000 a year.
It's not that people aren't recycling; just the opposite.
More people are; they're just doing it at home since the more inclusive single stream recycling program came on board last year.
"We didn't see changes in the first nine months, but now we're starting to see changes," said Roger Saterfiel, Kootenai County Solid Waste Department director, on declining school site collection totals since the change. "It's dropping more and more as time goes on."
Of the 42 schools in the three districts with containers to drop newspaper, cans and magazines, five will remain in place after the contracts expire June 1, 2012.
Hayden Meadows, Dalton Elementary and Hayden Kindergarten will remain as drop locations because of the high numbers they collect, while Kootenai school in Harrison and Canyon Elementary School by Rose Lake will remain intact because of their rural locations.
Coeur d'Alene was the first area city to bring single stream recycling on board last year. Since it has, others have followed, including Post Falls. The one-stop drop allows residents to dump more than a dozen different items into one bin that service trucks come and pick up curbside.
More than 4.1 million pounds of materials was picked up in Coeur d'Alene the first year, and participation rates reached around 63 percent. The rate was around 27 percent before the program began. Blue Bird Recycling, which takes in the collected goods, went from accepting seven types of materials to 17, according to the city.
Conversely, as those numbers went up, the number of people dropping off their materials at schools went down. Combined with the fact Solid Waste subsidizes the schools' recycling program for around $170,000, and the decision to stop wasn't difficult, Kootenai County Commissioner Dan Green said.
"I think it made it easier," he said of last week's decision. "Recycling has been a tremendous success."
The county will also place containers at more rural Dumpster sites for convenient recycling opportunities for people dumping their trash. The Mica Flats Dumpster site was the recipient of the first recycle bin and after 12 days, it collected more than 2,800 pounds of material.
The school program, meanwhile, has been in place since the early 1990s as an educational opportunity to teach about the benefits of recycling.
While the educational component has appeared to work, the program saved $27,000 in landfill space last year. So it didn't make economic sense to continue, Saterfiel said.
Laura Rumpler, Coeur d'Alene School District spokeswoman, said the district understood the county's decision from a fiscal perspective, and would inform parents and students regarding the change for next year.