
Municipal recycling as it used to operate on the Kenai Peninsula came to a grinding halt Dec. 11 with the demise of a 33-year-old piece of machinery at the Central Peninsula Landfill in Soldotna.
“I'll just say the hydraulic system, the ram separated from very large bolts — severed. Hundreds of tons of force and lots of bent piping. I call it a catastrophic failure. Irreparable,” said Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Peter Micciche.
The baler sits in the main building at the landfill, across from where cardboard is deposited. It was used to compress “fluffy” recyclables — like cardboard, paper, plastic and some aluminum — and bail it into cubes that could be trucked up the highway to Anchorage and beyond.
Micciche said it would likely cost between $2 and $5 million to replace, plus the costs of removing the old machine, retrofitting the building and installing a new one. That money is not in the current fiscal year budget. Micciche said the borough can look into grants but the process could take 18 months to two years for a new machine to be operable.
Cook Inletkeeper has been working with the borough and other local recycling groups to encourage reuse of materials, rather than putting them in the landfill.
“We are very disappointed to hear about the baler," said Kaitlin Vadla, regional director at Cook Inletkeeper’s Community Action Studio in Soldotna. "The Central Peninsula Landfill is a hub for the majority of communities across the peninsula, so this affects a lot more than just Soldotna. Borough residents pay more than $10 million a year to operate the landfill.”
For now, recyclables are still being collected at the landfill and transfer sites around the borough. Some of it will still find another use. The borough is working toward having a contractor take metals off its hands. Glass is crushed and used as aggregate material at the landfill. Micciche said he’d like to see tires shredded and the rubber used as cell liner. But things like paper, cardboard and plastics will likely join other trash in the ground.
“A lot of that material is simply going to go into the landfill for now, just because of the sheer quantity of it,” Micciche said.
Micciche said the landfill has an estimated 32 years of space at current rates of trash production. And while adding additional materials takes up some of that space, he said most recyclables disintegrate quickly or at least compress to low volumes.
“Paper and cardboard breaks down relatively quickly — in fact, faster than most waste streams," Micciche said "… The plastics are definitely an impact, depending on the grade of the plastic. Some last a very, very long time. Some break down relatively quickly.”
The borough is looking into options for handling recycling going forward. Micciche said he hopes to find a more cost-effective method than what has been happening. He said the cost of solid waste overall has gone up 50 percent in the last four years for the borough. And recyclables make up about 1% of the weight of all solid waste the borough transports but represent 13% of the hauling cost.
Most recycling collected around the borough is trucked to the Soldotna landfill. But unlike other trash that is hauled when bins are full, segmented recycling containers can be hauled when just one compartment is filled.
Once recycling is processed at the landfill — which is another cost in staff time — it’s trucked up the highway by various shipping partners. Micciche said those partners used to have more backhaul space available for cheaper than they do these days.
“And the volume of recyclables, of course, has increased over time. So, what was once a relatively efficient, cost-effective exercise in recycling has somewhat broken down over the years,” Micciche said.
Different materials have different final destinations, but the borough ultimately doesn’t control how its recyclables are handled once they’re handed off, whether they end up truly being recycled or whether they’re shipped to countries with lower labor costs and lighter regulations and can be dumped in less environmentally friendly ways.
“Are we actually doing something that helps the planet with the enormous carbon that's generated through the usage of diesel fuel, not only moving recyclables inefficiently around the borough, but then when they're shipped off elsewhere, out of state," Micciche said. "It's just time to evaluate if we're actually doing what we think we're doing, if we're accomplishing something positive for the environment or if we're actually moving in the wrong direction.”
Micciche said the borough will start meeting with stakeholders, partners and experts in waste management to evaluate the borough’s approach to solid waste overall, including recycling. Vadla said the recycling community is ready to help.
“We hope the baler gets back up and running and are eager to work together with community members and the borough to envision what a new and improved waste management system could look like at the Central Peninsula Landfill,” Vadla said.