Northern recycling program seeks donations at recycling drive

A university organization is helping out with a recycling drive this weekend and is hoping to get some help from the community so it can continue to provide a service to the community.

Brendan Heimz, sustainability coordinator of Montana State University-Northern’s Sustainability Program, said the program will have a donation box set up at Pacific Steel & Recycling during Saturday’s recycling drive while people from the program help with the drive.

Heimz said Northern’s Sustainability Program takes the No. 5 plastics collected at the drive and sends it off to a recycling center in New York for recycling at a significant cost to the university program and is hoping for some help from the community.

Other plastics, the No. 1s, 2s and 4s, are taken to Walmart to shipped off for recycling, he said.

Heimz said the program put out a donation box at last month’s drive to try to get some help recycling the No. 5s, without much success.

“We got about $5,” he said.

The No. 5 plastics, harder plastics used in items like sour cream or butter and margarine tubs, as well as prescription pill bottes — “Surprisingly, we get a lot of those,” Heimz added —  are a special concern for recycling due to its makeup, including high levels of toxins released that must be dealt with. Facilities to recycle No. 5s are comparatively rare, and Northern's Sustainability Program is spending about $500 to $600 a month shipping the plastic from the community recycling drives to New York, Heimz said.

The program, which is funded by an $8 student fee, does extensive recycling on campus including paper, plastic, aluminum and cardboard, taking three or four loads to Pacific every week, Heimz said, but would like some community support in recycling the No. 5 plastic so it can do even more at Northern.