BOISE, Idaho — The holidays bring more packages and parties — and for Boise’s recycling center, that means a big jump in cardboard, plastic bottles, and cans piling up on the sorting line.
“This is the front line to the whole system,” said Amil Ontiveros, who oversees operations at the facility. “We’ll have anywhere from about 4 to 5 sorters, pulling any sort of contamination.”
Sorters look for items like metal rods, cables, plastic bags, and other hazards that have to be removed from the line by hand.
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“Each sorter is doing anywhere from 45 to 50 picks per minute that they actually have to do just to keep everything alive and just keep it running,” Ontiveros explained.
During the holidays, the amount of recyclables coming in jumps about 20%, which means an extra 50 to 75 tons each day.
“I’ve seen it as high as 350 tons per day coming in,” Ontiveros added.
But with the extra volume comes more contamination.
“We’ve got some Christmas lights, some wiring that’ll come through here, coat hangers, all well-intentioned that we think [we] should be recycling, but unfortunately it doesn’t process through here,” Ontiveros said.
About 18% of what enters the facility ends up at the landfill. Ontiveros said trash bags filled with recyclables often have to be discarded because sorters don’t have time to tear them open.
“It’s almost impossible to just be here opening up the bags,” he said. “Keep it loose. If it’s in a bag, it’s just gonna end up going into our trash.”
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The facility processes materials through a series of machines equipped with magnets, air jets, cameras, and other technology to separate cardboard, paper, plastics, tin, and aluminum. The separated items are then crushed into bales, loaded onto trucks, and sent out to be reused.
Items like Styrofoam, Amazon mailers, and grocery bags are extremely difficult to recycle. Those can be placed in special Hefty ReNew orange bags to be converted into new products or used as fuel instead of going to a landfill.
The City of Boise says 98% of households have a recycling cart, and the annual diversion rate for the city is about 43% — which means that of the city's total waste, just under half ends up being recycled, turned into compost, or disposed of as household hazardous waste.
Not sure what you can recycle? You can find the Boise City Curb It sorting guide here to help you.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been, in part, converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
