With help from 40 eager volunteers, three part-time paid staff, and a new, large site for its yard, Ravalli County Recycling, Inc., is collecting and keeping out of the landfill some 516 tons (more than a million pounds, in 2014) per year of donated cardboard, newspapers, magazines, plastics, office mix, aluminum and steel cans. It just won a Montana EcoStar Pollution Prevention Award for its efforts and secured a $2,567 Rapp Family Foundation grant for expansion of recycling drop-off services in Stevensville – funded initially by $4,700 from the town. Drop-off recycling – into large rolling carts inside a reconfigured 40-foot shipping container – will be starting soon in the south parking lot of Burnt Fork Market, 601 Main Street, Stevensville. Meanwhile, Stevensville High School senior McKenzie Fite and Tim Schmidt are painting the container for their senior project, with paint donated by Stevensville Hardware.
Growth of the five-year-old, citizen-operated, nonprofit also made possible the acquisition of a compactor truck and a baler. Both dramatically reduce the bulk of recycled materials. Baled items also bring higher prices from recycling brokers and help RCR pay rent, salaries, fuel and equipment repairs – all keeping this ambitious Western Montana venture afloat. Prices for recyclables fluctuate and RCR, at times, takes many of these materials at a loss. Donations, grants and strict budgeting at RCR are key.
But volunteers are the heart and soul of the operation. They put in 4,959 hours last year as they assisted 13,400 customer visits, up from 10,600 visits in 2013, and from a smattering of recyclers when the nonprofit started up on a small patch of borrowed ground at the Ravalli County Fairgrounds. Now, this all takes place with volunteer assistance in just three hours every Saturday morning and another three hours each Monday afternoon at the RCR yard, 759 US Hwy 93 N, two miles north of Hamilton. When the Stevensville site opens for business, no volunteers will assist; fliers and signs will tell citizens how and what to recycle. For more information, go to ravallirecycling.org.