Ferré

The Friends of Wallowa County Recycling had the opportunity to present an overview of 2021 at the county commissioners meeting Dec. 15. The following is a summary of what is going on in the recycling and waste management world here in beautiful Wallowa County.

In 2021, the county (with the help of the Friends of Wallowa County Recycling), was able to win a $38,000 Mobile Recycling Grant. Those grant funds have now been put into action, creating a staffed position and custom-built trailer that has begun picking up recyclables from the Wallowa, Enterprise and Joseph schools. The hope is to expand this program as we move forward.

The 2021 Wallowa County Recycling Program, (with the support of each of you), diverted in excess of 1,242 tons of waste from the landfill (largest amount on record).

The county generated in excess of $86,778 in 2021 revenues from its recycling operations at the Recycling Center and Ant Flat.

Thirty-nine volunteers donated in excess of 513 hours worth of time in 2021 to help preserve, maintain and expand our recycling program. These volunteer hours were worth more than $20,046 in donated time.

In 2021, the residents of Wallowa County directly donated $2,671 to help preserve and expand the recycling program. Those funds are being used to help the county outfit the mobile recycling trailer, promote the mobile program at the schools, purchase tools and supplies for volunteers to use to clean, sort and organize the Recycling Center and continue to explore how to improve and expand our county’s reducing, reusing and recycling programs.

The state of Oregon passed the Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act (Senate Bill 582). The Recycling Modernization Act will overhaul Oregon’s outdated recycling system by building on local community programs and leveraging the resources of producers to create an innovative system that works for everyone in the state as summarized:

• Responsibility is shared and scaled by bringing packaging producers into Oregon’s recycling system to cover the cost of improvements.

• Increase access to recycling by providing or increasing recycling services to people who did not previously have them, such as rural areas.

• Prevents plastic pollution by ensuring collected material is actually recycled.

• One list for the entire state of what can be recycled.

To provide an overview of this new state initiative, Laurie Gordon, (Materials Management Regional Specialist for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality), will be doing a “Pub Talk” on Tuesday, March 8 from 6-8 p.m. at Range Rider. Come learn more.

2021 was full of challenges, hardships and wonderful opportunities, and as the above facts and figures shared everyone pulled together this past year to help preserve and expand our ability to reduce, reuse and recycle through the Wallowa County Recycling Program.

We continue to need your help as we move forward. The Wallowa County fiscal year ends at the end of June and we all need to work to ensure the 2022 budget supports a continued recycling program. We continue to need volunteers to help at the center and with organizing recycling operations (email us at wallowacountyrecycles@gmail.com for more information).

Most importantly, we all need to focus on reducing, (buying and using less), reusing, (make it a goal to reuse everyday), and recycling (bring all your recyclable cardboard, paper, tin, aluminum, glass and plastic to the Recycling Center).