Many people move to Teton County from big cities, where they enjoyed the luxury of tossing their metal cans, plastic water bottles and cardboard boxes into a single blue recycling bin.
Here in Teton County recyclers are expected to sort materials into separate bins at drop-off sites, and only certain plastics are allowed.
Why is such a supposedly environmentally focused community so 鈥渂ehind鈥� on recycling? That鈥檚 a question Teton County Integrated Waste and Recycling gets a lot, and it鈥檚 rooted in a misconception about how recycling works, outreach coordinator Mari Allan Hanna said.
In reality, Hanna said, Teton County is ahead of other communities in the way it recycles 鈥� especially during volatile times in the recycling market.
Almost all materials in the global recycling market are purchased by China, but China has increasingly refused contaminated or low-value materials.
鈥淭hey enacted increased restrictions on their imports and what they would pay for,鈥� Hanna said.
It started in 2013, but this year China made the restrictions stricter, calling the move 鈥淥peration National Sword.鈥�
That means there鈥檚 an increased demand for clean recyclables, putting Teton County鈥檚 system at an advantage, Hanna said.
鈥淚n Teton County we have always had to be very conscious of the value of our materials and the recyclability of our materials,鈥� Hanna said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e always had to make sure the cost and energy required to transport our materials such far distances to market is worthwhile.鈥�
Teton County鈥檚 source-separated system allows for a contamination rate of less than 1 percent. A team of six staff members sorts through the materials to ensure quality.
Single-stream recycling can result in a contamination rate of upwards of 30 percent, Hanna said, resulting in a lot of material going to a landfill.
Teton County is strict about accepting only high-quality recyclables. For plastics that means only Nos. 1 and 2 plastics in the bottle shape. Lower-value plastics (Nos. 3-7) are not accepted, and neither is paperboard, like cereal boxes, because they are low-value and at the end of their life cycle.
鈥淲e have never accepted those,鈥� Hanna said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e always known they were lower value and lower recyclability, and not worth the transportation and energy emissions to get them to market. The rest of the world is just finding that out now.鈥�
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