Category Archives: Technology

Idaho, Technology

Plastic Grocery Bags, Recycle Them!

Ok, I was watching a local East Idaho TV news program. They ran a national story about getting sick from reusable grocery bags. What got me was in their intro to the story they said that plastic grocery bags just ended up in the landfill. Well not if you recycle them!

When plastic grocery bags first went into use one of the main selling points is that they are recyclable, and therefore will not fill up landfills. The reason they end up in your local dump is because shoppers are not bringing them back to the stores to be recycled.

The Walmart in Chubbuck has bins for dropping off your old plastic grocery bags. So does the Fred Meyer in Pocatello. I believe you can recycle them at your local WINCO. If you’re not sure go ask someone at the Customer Service counter at your favorite store. Just make sure your bags aren’t covered in schmutz.

Why spend money on reusable grocery bags, that they now say may be germ factories, when you can use free plastic grocery bags THAT ARE 100% RECYCLABLE? Please don’t throw them in the trash!

And guess what, it’s not just plastic grocery bags you can recycle. Bread bags, cereal box liner bags & more. Here’s a website for more info on plastic bag recycling: www.plasticbagrecycling.org

Idaho, Technology

No Glass or Styrofoam Recycling in SE Idaho?

Today I was dropping off my recyclables at the dumpsters next to Pocatello City Hall, when a city employee told me I was wasting my time dropping off the glass and styrofoam. He said the glass and styrofoam dumpster went straight to the landfill.

This is not the first time I’ve heard this. Many years ago the folks at the local Pacific Steel & Recycling told me the same thing. Well, I’ve had lots of arguments over the years with residents (and even my kids argued with some of their grade school teachers) who believe that you can recycle glass and styrofoam locally. After the City of Pocatello labeled a small dumpster for glass and styrofoam I thought, maybe I was wrong. Nope, the city employee confirmed that the glass and styrofoam is not recycled. His reason was the same reason Pacific Steel & Recycling gave me years ago; no local south eastern Idaho glass or styrofoam recyclers/manufacturers, and it is too expensive to ship out of the area. It’s just thrown in the local landfill.

I decided to double check this, and sure enough, looking at the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality website (www.deq.idaho.gov), there are no glass or styrofoam recyclers in south eastern Idaho. The nearest Eastern Idaho recycler taking glass is in the City of Driggs, in Teton County, which is about 125 miles northwest of where I live. There are glass recyclers in North Central Idaho, Central Idaho, Western Idaho, Southern Idaho and Northern Idaho, but not in the south eastern part of Eastern Idaho (and only the one in all of Eastern Idaho). Most recycled glass, in the areas of Idaho that do recycle it, end up being used in road projects.

The DEQ website lists Adams County (on the west side of Idaho) as a styrofoam recycler, but, when I checked their web site I couldn’t find any mention of styrofoam recycling (www.co.adams.id.us). It looks like there’s no styrofoam recycling anywhere in Idaho.

So why did the City of Pocatello label a recycling dumpster for glass and styrofoam? The city employee said they got tired of people throwing glass and styrofoam into the dumpsters labeled for cardboard, plastic or aluminum & tin (even though there’s numerous signage asking people not to). So they simply grabbed a small dumpster and labeled it for glass and styrofoam, and haul it to the dump when it’s full.