Grand County residents and visitors have two options for recycling: the Community Recycle Center on Sand Flats Road, where recyclers self-sort their items, or the Solid Waste Special Service District’s curbside pickup program, which is a mixed, or single-stream, system where all accepted materials are disposed of in the same bin.
“We’re running two systems, and the two systems don’t take the same materials,” said Mike Kenerley, director of Canyonlands Solid Waste Authority. “So that’s confusing.”
Kenerley has worked in waste management for years and moved from South Carolina to take on the leadership of the Solid Waste Special Service District (now called Canyonlands Solid Waste Authority) after the departure of former director Evan Tyrrell. He’s been in the position for about a year. The Moab Sun News spoke with Kenerley to learn more about how Moab recycles.
Community Recycle Center
Grand County residents and visitors can bring their recyclables to the Community Recycle Center and sort their materials into supersized plastic sacks and cardboard boxes neatly arranged around a gravel drive-through and labeled with pictures and descriptions of acceptable materials. On a sunny February afternoon, Canyonlands Solid Waste Authority workers were busy helping to correct sorting errors and gathering cardboard to be baled into large compacted cubes.
The Community Recycle Center accepts cardboard, newspaper, mixed paper, glass, tin or steel cans, aluminum cans, and several kinds of plastic. Each item must be sorted by the consumer/recycler; glass is separated by color, and plastics are sorted into #1, #2, or #5 bins.
Different plastics are engineered for different properties, such as rigidity or flexibility, durability, and other qualities, to serve different purposes. The types of resins used to make each plastic are coded with numbers 1 through 7, and the numbers are usually stamped on the bottom of plastic products within the familiar “chasing arrows” symbol. However, the chasing arrows don’t mean that an item is accepted at the Recycle Center, or in curbside pickup, for that matter. Instead, recyclers should look at the number inside the chasing arrows and consider the type of product.
#1 plastic is used for things like beverage bottles and peanut butter jars, which are accepted at the Recycle Center—however, plastic clamshells like the containers used to hold berries or salad mixes are not, even if they’re labeled #1. #2 plastic, used for things like milk jugs and laundry detergent bottles, is accepted.
#5 plastic is often used to make tubs for foods like yogurt or butter. Recently the Recycle Center began accepting this type of plastic, sorted into its own labeled sack, as well. Kenerley said a market has developed for the material.
“It was always recyclable,” he said of #5 plastic, “but there wasn’t anyone to sell it to.” Now there is, and the solid waste district can sell it to a broker.
All the materials collected at the Community Recycle Center, except the cardboard, are shipped to a broker in Salt Lake City called Interwest Paper. Interwest Paper was founded in the 1970s and promotes “clean-stream” recycling over single-stream—that is, the company advocates for sorted recyclables like those at the Community Recycle Center rather than mixed materials. Sorted recyclables are easier to clean and process.
The cardboard collected at the Community Recycle Center is sent to a mill in Oklahoma.
E-waste (electronics and batteries) and hazardous household materials such as antifreeze can be disposed of at the Community Recycle Center for a fee (antifreeze can also be taken to the transfer station). The e-waste is taken to an electronics recycler based in Lindon, Utah called TAMS; the hazardous household waste is taken by a company called Veolia. Hazardous household waste must be disposed of in a specialized landfill with appropriate liners, pumps and filtration systems.
More information on the Community Recycle Center can be found on the district’s website, swssd1.org. A page on the site includes data on how much material the center is processing: in December of 2023, for example, the site says over 68,000 pounds of cardboard was baled, along with thousands of pounds of other materials.
Curbside pick-up
The principal advantage of single-stream recycling, Kenerley said, is that it’s easier for people to do, and they’re therefore more likely to do it. Kenerley said the solid waste district collects about three times the volume of recyclables through its curbside program compared to what it collects at the Recycle Center. Roughly 20% of that curbside volume ends up going to a landfill or being incinerated, he said, but the net effect is still more volume of recycled material through the curbside pickup program.
The Canyonlands Solid Waste Authority curbside pickup recycling program accepts cardboard, glass, aluminum, steel and empty aerosol cans, mixed paper, and all plastics except #6 (which is styrofoam). Not acceptable in a single-stream bin: plastic clamshells, styrofoam, plastic bags or cling wrap, tissues or napkins, waxed paper, or shredded paper.
Moab’s single-stream recycling is sent to a materials recovery center, or MRF, in Salt Lake City, owned by a company called Waste Management—the largest waste management company in the world, according to its website. The material is sorted by machine and sold to a variety of mills and manufacturers, mainly within North America, according to Jennifer Wargo of Waste Management.
Wargo also said that Waste Management “encourages people to recycle plastics based on shape rather than numbers,” as the number inside the chasing arrows symbol “is not an accurate indication of recyclability.”
“We coach people to recycle plastic bottles (e.g. water/soda), jugs (OJ, laundry detergent), tubs (sour cream) and jars (nut butter),” Wargo said in an email. “Other plastic materials are not accepted in the mixed recycling stream due to difficulty sorting (e.g. plastic bags) or lack of an end-market (e.g. foam).”
She also noted that it’s important that people refrain from bagging their recycling, and that materials are clean, with no food or beverage residues.
“Putting the right materials in the recycling cart (bottles, cans, paper, cardboard) and keeping the wrong materials out (everything else) will help ensure these quality materials get a chance at a second life,” Wargo wrote.
Kenerley said staff at the MRF that takes Moab’s mixed recycling are impressed with its quality.
“They just told us last week that they absolutely love our material,” Kenerley said—Grand County recyclers are generally doing a good job of rinsing their recyclables and putting the correct materials in their recycling bins.
Wargo wrote that recycled materials can be used to make new products such as new cardboard boxes from cardboard; tissue or paper towels from paper; new aluminum cans from recycled ones; and clothing, shoes, carpet and sleeping bags from plastic bottles.
“Other plastic containers can be recycled into decking material, toys and buckets,” she wrote.
Participants in curbside pickup recycling should note that although glass is accepted in single-stream bins, it won’t end up getting recycled through that route. Canyonlands Solid Waste has an agreement to pick up glass, but the MRF in Salt Lake City doesn’t process it for reuse. To ensure glass is recycled—and it is a material that can be 100% recycled—bring it to the Community Recycle Center and sort it by color.
Transfer station
Kenerley gave a tour of the district’s transfer station on the south end of town. The public can bring unusual items, such as furniture, to the transfer station; there’s also a huge pile of scrap metal to which the public can add unwanted metal items at no charge. A couple of times a year, the district sells the metal to the highest bidder—it’s usually priced low, because it’s unsorted.
The transfer station is also where waste collection trucks bring trash before it goes to the landfill, as well as single-stream recycling before it goes to the MRF. Kenerley pointed to a large pile inside a warehouse, which he estimated was three or four days’ worth of recycling from county curbside pickup subscribers. He noticed a few prohibited items—plastic clamshells and some styrofoam—but mostly saw clean, acceptable items. Once there’s a full truckload, the district will bring the material to the MRF in Salt Lake. Roughly every 10 days, Canyonlands Solid Waste sends 12 to 15 tons of single-stream recycling to the MRF.
Reduce and reuse
Recycling is one way to get more use out of a material and keep it out of limited landfill space and the environment for a little longer, but it’s not the most important way to decrease waste. Reducing and reusing are the other two-thirds of the anti-waste mantra. Recycling takes water and energy, especially in a place like Moab—materials must be trucked a significant distance to be sold and processed, increasing the resources needed to recycle.
“There’s a reason that ‘reduce’ is the first ‘R,’” Kenerley said: reducing the amount of waste produced is the best way to minimize costs and environmental impacts of waste management and disposal.
Kenerley encourages people to give him a call at 435-259-3867 if they have questions about recycling or waste disposal.
“I’m not here to hide the facts,” he said. “I want people to know the facts.”
