Single Sort Recycling is Now in Effect in Beltrami County

Recycling is not supposed to be a difficult task, but for the longest time, residents in Beltrami County had to separate their own recyclables before dropping them off at the transfer station. Fiber products weren’t allowed to be mixed in with containers because the machine at the facility couldn’t handle it.

“The reason we are doing single sort recycling now is because we are able to bring our stuff over to Polk County,”  Beltrami County Solid Waste Manager Brian Olson said. “Before, they couldn’t handle the single sort recycling. The machines over there which is an automated process could only handle fiber and containers separately. Now, the state of the art facility can actually handle both and it’s more efficient for the facility to actually have your recycling now mixed.”

For the single sort recycling initiative to take effect, all the facilities had to be renovated. Olson said that all of the waste recyclables go to a material recovery facility in Fosston, an automated plant which has some people behind the scenes for quality control. Olson said that’s where all the recycling then gets separated to where then it can get sold.

The Beltrami County Waste Management is also working on an app to make it easier for people to find the transfer sites. The app will allow people to click on the solid waste site they want to go to and see what they can and cannot bring to that specific facility, said Olson.