Recycling change-up in Twin Falls, what this means for residents

The company that used to handle recycling for the city of Twin Falls closed earlier this summer, and PSI, the company that collects curbside recycling along with residential waste, has taken steps to build a recycling handling facility of its own.

• Residents won't likely notice a difference in service
• PSI and the City ask people to please only put recyclables in the bins with the orange lids
• Only three things can be recycled. Just remember ACT: Aluminum Cardboard, Tin.

( Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
As a waste and recycling collection driver for psi, Kyle Boas keeps an eye out for things that don't belong in his truck.

"I'm looking for anything that shouldn't be there and making sure that it's basically just cans and cardboard," Boas tells me as I ride along with him on part of his collection route.

Curbside recycling has been a part of the waste collection in Twin Falls for about 20 years.

Jace Melugin at PSI tells me that for most of that time, they would haul the recycling to Magic Valley Recycling, who sorted and bailed it, and sold it. Now, that company has shut its doors, and psi is stepping up to handle it themselves.

"So we've always collected the trash, and now we've assumed the role recently of bailing and processing our own recycling ," Melugin said. "it's kind of eliminating the middleman now that Magic Valley Recycling is closed down."

The market for recycling has gotten tougher over the years.

And one issue gets in the way of keeping recycling cost-effective.

"An entire deer carcass," Boas said. An entire deer carcass? "Yeah, the lid was closed, and when i dumped an entire deer carcass fell out. So, needless to say, that load was not going to the recycle center."

It happens a lot.

"Motor oil, live ammunition, animal carcasses, engine blocks," Josh Palmer from the city of Twin Falls listed a few he'd seen over the years.

Palmer says that the wrong items in the bins with orange lids is a major challenge to recycling efforts.

"It not only contaminates the bin but if it goes in the truck and contaminates the truck, the entire truckload cannot be recycled in that case," Palmer said.

Only three kinds of items belong in the recycle bins with the orange lids, Melugin said.

"We use the acronym ACT so aluminum, cardboard, tin," Melugin said. "So if we can keep it clean, it will in turn reduce the amount of cost for taxpayers for the city of Twin Falls for everything like that."

Part of the reason the city encourages recycling is the landfill at Milner Butte is filling up faster than planned

"There's a significant amount of trash that we were producing not only as a city but as a region," Palmer said. "What we need to do is trend those numbers in a different direction.

"You know, there's a lot of people in our community that do a very great job at keeping it to the basic three things," Melugin said. "Allowing us to be able to recycle more."