POCATELLO — A newly repurposed recycling facility is making the Gate City greener and saving taxpayers money by cutting overhead expenses.

Community members, city officials and Pocatello-Chubbuck Chamber of Commerce representatives attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony and demonstration on Monday at the facility, 3034 Garrett Way, to mark the achievement.

Pocatello purchased the former Western Recycling Center site in August 2024 to prevent its planned closure after it was acquired by a new company. Without city intervention, Pocatello would have lost curbside recycling services, making it more difficult for residents to recycle.

According to Pocatello Public Works Director Tom Kirkman, local participation in curbside recycling is around 77 percent, compared with the national average of 30-35 percent.

Kirkman said the city previously paid upward of $30,000 monthly to dispose of its recycling.

“What we do here is we actually bale the products, both single stream, which is what’s in your blue container, and cardboard. Then it gets shipped to places where it gets sorted and we receive a commodity amount for it,” Kirkman said. “What we’ve been able to do is, with low overhead and low operating costs here, we’ve been able to lower the cost to get rid of our single stream, and then we’ve increased our cardboard supply here.”

The high costs of single-stream recycling are offset by revenue from cardboard, allowing the facility to break even or turn a profit, Kirkman said.

“We actually get paid a pretty large commodity for (our cardboard), and so the high costs of the single stream with the savings on the cardboard has allowed us to become net zero, and we’ve even made money a few months on recycling,” he said. “We’re probably one of the few communities in the nation that are actually breaking even or making money on recycling.”

The city started its commercial cardboard route in June. Kirkman said the more cardboard processed through the facility, the better the city’s financial position. In June alone, the city netted $13,000.

“What we’re hoping is, if we can get more and more cardboard through here, it’s going to lead to some revenues that we will be able to lower our fees to the public,” Kirkman said. “Recycling is also the right thing to do for the environment. Anything we can keep out of a landfill is going to lower our costs, because landfills are very expensive to build and to maintain, and anything we can divert to another use is going to help us out considerably as a city and as a ratepayer.”

The ceremony included a demonstration of how recycled materials are processed and sorted in the warehouse. Using a collection truck, recycled waste is dumped onto the facility floor in a staging area, where it is pushed into a collection area by a specialized forklift. Workers remove trash items like Styrofoam, plastic and other garbage before a machine with a conveyor belt system moves the recycled materials into a compressor. The materials are compressed and packed into large bales, which are sold to companies for further processing.

The facility also accepts drop-offs of recycled materials, including glass bins and electronic waste such as old cellphones, laptops and televisions.

Kirkman said the cleaner the cardboard the facility receives, the better its financial return.

“The people of Pocatello are very passionate about recycling,” Kirkman said. “It’s just a good service for the community.”