ARK Regional Services will be shutting down their recycling program in Laramie in May, and that could leave a lot of local businesses with a big cardboard problem on their hands. Big Hollow Food Coop Manager, Marla Peterson, estimates that they fill the ARK recycling dumpster twice a week with cardboard. She says there’s no way the city’s smaller curbside bins could handle that kind of volume.
Brooks Webb is the City of Laramie’s Solid Waste Manager. He says the city hasn’t yet figured out a solution to the looming problem. But Webb says it shouldn’t go in the landfill. “Basically, whether it’s cardboard or any recyclables, we want to try to keep those out of the landfill as much as possible,” he says. “They take up basically unneeded space. And it’s material that could be turned into new product.”
Webb says the landfill will start recycling in March and business owners can truck their loads of cardboard there. But as the May 1 deadline approaches, he says the city will also look at other solutions, such as purchasing ARK’s equipment.