WALLOWA COUNTY — Managing solid waste in a remote, rural community has big challenges.

But a coordinated effort among Wallowa County organizations is setting the stage to improve the county’s recycling systems and educate recyclers of all ages.

In 2020 a group of volunteers, dubbed Wallowa County Recycles, got together to help sort recyclables at the county’s recycling center. On a schedule managed by the group’s steering committee, volunteers remove “contaminants” — unrecyclable material — and sort tin from aluminum to ensure that each bale offers the maximum possible value for the companies that buy the material.

Randi Jandt is one of the members of Wallowa County Recycles and said that having volunteer assistance is crucial to the recycling center in Wallowa County, located at 301-303 Fish Hatchery Lane in Enterprise. She said that sometimes over a weekend there can be as many as seven bales of cardboard, which is almost 3½ tons. The cardboard is then sold and shipped to Longview, Washington.

“What we are trying to do to help the recycling situation is putting in some volunteer hours on the weekends to go in and get cardboard back from the door — and stuff that shouldn’t be in there like Styrofoam peanuts, or wood or nails, whatever is contaminating it — so we go down and help sort the cardboard and plastic and tin that overflows the storage,” she said.

Meanwhile, the county has received a grant of $38,000 from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to pick up paper, cardboard, tin, aluminum and plastic from Wallowa, Enterprise and Joseph schools as well as from Building Healthy Families, which houses a preschool and alternative high school. The grant paid for marketing material, recycling bins and a trailer to bring recycling containers to local events.

And to deepen the connection between the schools and the county’s solid-waste program, a grant from the Oregon Department of Education is covering the cost of in-class recycling and composting instruction at Wallowa Elementary School this winter and spring.

The grant, written in partnership with St. Patrick Episcopal Church, also covers the installation of an irrigation system at the church for its community garden, which grows food for Building Healthy Families, Head Start and the Community Connection Food Bank. The funding also pays for nutrition and gardening education at the alternative high school and Head Start as well as nutrition instruction by the Oregon State University Extension Service in Wallowa and Joseph schools.

Ann Bloom, retired OSU Extension nutrition specialist and a freelance contributor to the Chieftain, and Katy Nesbitt, Wallowa County’s natural resources and economic development director, are teaching recycling and composting lessons to students at Wallowa Elementary students. The students are learning how to identify recyclable and compostable material through games and art. They also learn about how composting and recycling reduces waste going to the landfill.

“I think it’s important to start teaching children about recycling at an early age, the earlier the better, so they develop good habits about not just tossing something in the garbage so it ends up in a landfill,” Bloom said.

She said all of these efforts are to improve residents’ understanding of sustainable systems like recycling, composting and gardening to complement the work of Wallowa County Recycles.

“Our hope is that they learn about recycling so they can help protect the environment, and preserve it for their children and their children’s children and generations to come,” she said.

The kids were enthusiastic in their interactions learning about composting. They showed impressive knowledge about whether an item could be composted. For instance, Nesbitt held up a tin can and asked the students if it was compostable. The students knew tin needed to be recycled.

Aid from the state?

Recycling advocates throughout the county are hoping the Recycling Modernization Act, Senate Bill 582, passed during the 2021 legislative session, will boost their efforts. The law seeks to update the state’s recycling system by building on local community programs and creating a statewide list of acceptable recyclables. The intent is to expand access to recycling services, upgrade the facilities that sort recyclables, and create environmental benefits while reducing social and environmental harms.

The bill calls for producers and manufacturers of packaged items and paper products to pay for many of these expanded services.

For Wallowa County, this could mean state funding to help pay for staff, material transportation, improvements to aging equipment such as the balers in the recycling center, and even perhaps expansion of the center.

Jandt believes the county’s recycling center could use upgrading that the state money could fund.

“One of the problems is the size of our building,” she said. “The footprint is very limiting, so we could definitely use an expanded footprint or a bigger place. … Now it’s hard to keep up. We can fill up that building with cardboard on a weekend. I don’t know if it is because we have more people or habits have changed; maybe we’re ordering more stuff online or through the mail.”

In the meantime, though, Nesbitt said the county will continue to spread the word about recycling.

“While we have a few years before the state funding is available,” she said, “we are looking at ways to increase education and access to recycling.”

To learn more, visit the Facebook page Wallowa County Recycles. To learn what items can be recycled — and which items cannot — visit Wallowa County’s solid-waste website at https://co.wallowa.or.us/public-works/solid-waste/recycle-center/

Here’s a sampling of material that’s accepted at the Wallowa County Recycle Center:

Cardboard

• Corrugated cardboard

• Brown paper bags

• Paper board (e.g. cereal boxes)

• Paper board egg cartons

Paper

• Color paper/phonebooks

• Junk mail/envelopes/brochures

• White paper

• White office paper

• White envelopes

• Leave shredded paper in bags

Glass

• Glass bottles (lids removed)

• Glass jars (lids removed)

Aluminum

• Aluminum beverage cans

Tin cans

• Make sure they’re clean and with the labels removed

Plastic

• Milk containers

• Plastic bottles; no lids

• Clean plastic containers (e.g., detergent, mayonnaise)

For more information: co.wallowa.or.us/public-works/solid-waste/recycle-center/

Here’s a sampling of items that are not accepted at the Wallowa County Recycle Center:

• Waxed cardboard

• Dairy or juice cartons

• Food residue (e.g., greasy pizza boxes)

• Styrofoam or bubble wrap

• Coffee/drink cups, waxed takeout containers

• Pet food bags

• Waxed paper or cartons

• Tissue paper

• Tempered glass (e.g., windowpanes, mirrors)

• Light bulbs/light tubes

• Ceramics or pottery (e.g., mugs and plates)

• Soiled cans, foil or pie pans

• Nonhousehold metal or electronic scrap

• Pressurized aerosol spray cans

• Pressurized fuel containers

• All other plastics, including plastic films (grocery or garbage bags, for example).

• Rigid plastics or small bottles under 6 ounces

• Packing materials or Styrofoam

• Used auto oil or herbicide containers

For more information: co.wallowa.or.us/public-works/solid-waste/recycle-center/