Recycling takes real effort in NW towns

Sometimes the wonderful, wide world of recycling seems one big magical, mystery tour.

On the Recycling Trail in mid-September, I followed a giant 8-foot Chinook salmon into the Cascades where I got “face time” with Wanda and Cosmo, Buzz Lightyear, Anakin Skywalker, Yoda and the luminary SpongeBob SquarePants. Turns out they’re all heavily into recycling.

I was on the trail because I’d been hired by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to facilitate an art project as part of their 15th Annual Wenatchee River Salmon Festival. The festival is held at the National Fish Hatchery just outside Leavenworth, Wash., at the mouth of Icicle Canyon.

The hatchery staff asked me to work with festival-going kids to create a salmon sculpture from recyclables that would otherwise, as their Web site said, “end up in the throwaway bin.” Fish & Wildlife helps educate citizens about the link between behaviors in human habitats and the health of salmon habitats.

So for two days the kids (1,500 third- and fourth-graders a day!) and I cut frozen orange juice lid-sized “scales” from cereal, cracker and pizza boxes and stapled them to big salmon cut-outs. Our two completed salmon have bright scales sporting an array of cartoon characters, a rainbow of color, and no shortage of whimsy. The salmon will be on display at future festivals.

Great festival. Beautiful setting. Terrific staff. Lovely kids. But there was one nagging question: recyclables that would otherwise end up in the throwaway bin? True, Leavenworth residents are not as fortunate as we are to have curbside pickup and transfer station drop-off sites for recyclables.

With a population of just over 2,000, Leavenworth has a service area of perhaps twice to three times that. Not to mention the guests in Leavenworth’s dozen or more hotel/motels that aim to be fully booked year-round. Plenty of recyclables being generated. But to recycle, conscientious residents must gather up their collection baskets and drive them to Cashmere or Wenatchee.

But here’s some good news from the Recycling Trail: in January 2004, concerned citizens formed Leavenworth Recycles, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to establish a recycling center.

Leavenworth Recycles board member Lisi Ott says it’s not just about good stewardship, but also economics.

“Our local economy is tourism-based,” she says. “If our pristine environment is trashed, what’s the incentive for people to come?” Ott says Leavenworth Recycles is working with the mayor and city council to show them the benefits of recycling and help them learn why it’s good.

Leaving Leavenworth, I picked up the Recycling Trail in Oroville, Wash., where I once again found good news about recycling. I was booked to give a Humanities Washington Inquiring Mind presentation called “American Quilts/American Voices.” That presentation shows ways quilts “speak” to us, from quilt-patch names to fabrics used. I make “quilts” from post-consumer recyclables and feel a kinship with traditional quilters who also value “scraps.”

My Oroville hosts, Ellie and Rick Braman, told me they’d lived and conveniently recycled for 20 years in the Seattle area. Recently they moved to Oroville and looked for recycling options but all the sites were simply too far away. Then they discovered recycling bins in nearby Osoyoos, British Columbia, that accepted newspaper, paper, cardboard, boxboard and No. 2 plastic milk jugs.

“The border guards know I take my recycling up there,” Ellie Braman says. “And once I saw the garbage collector and asked him if it was OK. He said, ‘Sure – more is always better no matter what country it comes from!’”

Braman told me she and her husband “feel that the world has to be thinking ahead in every way – from garbage disposal, to clean water, to energy-efficient cars. Making less trash to go into landfills is just one small part of the whole puzzle and something we can do to help.”

I was feeling the good vibes as I moseyed on down the Recycling Trail toward home. Folks going out of their way to recycle. Made me thank my lucky stars for that little blue treasure chest I set out on the curb once a week.