WICAP offers to run recycling center

Officials with the nonprofit WICAP office in Weiser offered to take over daily operations at the Evelyn Stover Recycling Center in Weiser and restart recycling at the recently closed facility.

 WICAP officials Steve Morningstar and Jackie Jermann met with Washington County commissioners on Monday with a proposal to run the recycling center. The organization already has workmans comp insurance and can pull together the volunteers, people given community service hours  and other workers to make the recycling operation work, he said.

 Morningstar said he plans to meet with the Weiser City Council on Oct. 9 to make the same offer. The WICAP board has approved the idea, he said.

 For the past four years the recycling center has been operated by the nonprofit Weiser River Resource Council. Citing some issues with continuing to run the center, the WRRC notified the county in July that it would stop operations on Sept. 26. 

 The recycling center is currently closed “until further notice,” a sign says. Two large metal dumpsters are blocking access to both ends of the recycling center.

 WRRC officials said finding volunteers to run the center was increasingly difficult. Another issue surfaced when the nonprofit was told it needed to provide workman’s comp for the volunteers who bale cardboard and work at the recycling center. The prices received for recycled commodities went down and revenue dropped.

 The city owns the property the center sits on and a forklift. The county owns the canopy roof over the recycling center. The recycling center accepted numerous items, including cardboard, magazines, paper, tin, aluminum cans and other recyclables for years and volunteers baled the cardboard and kept the center tidy. 

 Commissioner Kirk Chandler said the county did the research on a countywide recycling program but has not been able to make it work economically. 

 The county has been unfairly criticized as not interested in recycling when that is not the case, he said.

 “We have been working on this,” he said. “We haven’t found a good way to take it on Any effort by the county to step in to run the recycling center in Weiser would be complicated, he said. If the county agreed to run it, EPA rules and regulations would kick in that would require the county to fence the recycling center site, staff it and only offer certain hours of use by the public.

 The county doesn’t own the land and has no responsibility or liability for the recycling center. The county has agreed to help subsidize the recycling operation to the tune of $300 a month to make up the difference when commodity prices are down.

 Weiser Mayor Diana Thomas also said the city has looked at recycling and talked to other cities across the state about their programs. The city concluded it would not work out economically. 

 “I don’t know what the solution is either,” she said. “It’s not that we don’t want to see it be successful.”

 She said she hears from people in the community that recycling is the right thing to do, but “somebody has to pay for it.” While the city is not able to run the center, the city would welcome another nonprofit to operate it.

 “We will work cooperatively with anybody trying to go down that road,” the mayor said.

 Morningstar said they have talked to Western Recycling, which owns the cardboard baler at the recycling center, and the company said it would work with WICAP. 

 He and Jermann asked who would be responsible if equipment repairs were needed at the center. 

 “We just don’t have any dollars to put into that. We certainly can’t go into the hole, but we would love to help out the community with recycling if we can break even or make a small profit.”

 Chandler said the county would be willing to continue to place a cardboard collection bin at the Midvale transfer station and haul the cardboard to the Weiser recycling center.

 Anderson said he would be in favor of giving WICAP the $300 monthly subsidy that the county allocated toward the center to help make up revenue for volunteers when commodity prices are down. The monthly amount is in the county budget for the next year.

 “To me, that is a small amount to pay,” he said. “I am really glad that you guys stepped up to do this. I hope it continues to keep going.”

 Commissioner Nate Marvin said he was in support of helping WICAP.

 The WRRC said it will continue to work with the county and city in any way it can to get a viable recyling program for Washington County and the cities of Weiser, Midvale and Cambridge.