Curbside recycling services from Clear Creek are available, with no extra charge. Rubbish collection fees include the cost of service for recycling. 

Recyclable materials must rinsed and clean (no food residue, grease, etc.) and dry, and they must be sorted by material type. You can use blue bins purchased from Clear Creek, or you can sort materials in any bucket or container you have around. 

Items that can be sorted and picked up for curbside recycling:

• Aluminum, steel, tin
• Copy paper and newspaper
• #1-5 plastic bottles, containers, and lids. Check the number in the triangle that is listed on the product!

The City of Hailey offer FREE compost drop-off at 4 locations across the City:

• Atkinson's
• Albertson's
• Keefer Park
• Community Campus 

LEARN MORE HERE

Why does composting matter? How does it make an impact on sustainability?

When food waste/organic matter is discarded into a landfill, it will inevitably get covered up and buried by other waste product that is dropped off. Once buried, this creates an environment where the organic matter is decomposing without the presence of oxygen. This is called anaerobic decomposition. Anaerobic decomposition produces methane gas, which is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, with a high “global warming potential” (GWP).

GWP is the universal metric that is used to measure the potencies of different greenhouse gases (methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, etc. There are many more, these are some of the most common). The higher the GWP, the more energy that compound is able to absorb, and thus the greater it contributes “thickening” our atmosphere and preventing heat and energy from dissipating.

Composting, however, is the process of organic matter decomposing with plenty of oxygen available, also called aerobic decomposition. This is why we’re told to “turn over” our compost piles, spin the black barrels that are commonly used for backyard composting, etc. Aerobic decomposition creates carbon dioxide as a by-product, instead of methane.

This mimics what naturally happens in the ecosystem, much closer than the outcomes of landfilling. When a plant dies, it releases carbon dioxide. New plant life (whether year over year growth of trees, for example, or annual new growth of something like a daffodil) absorbs carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide is also a greenhouse gas, but it has a significantly lower GWP. It is also used as the reference point for the entire GWP scale itself. Carbon dioxide has a GWP of 1, whereas methane has a GWP of 27-30.

By composting, we are limiting the release of the stronger, more damaging greenhouse gas of methane, and trading that instead for carbon dioxide, which is much less potent and harmful (at least in the short term). Essentially, it’s a tradeoff, but one that again, mimics what naturally happens in forests and ecosystems.

The other added benefit to composting, at least in the Wood River Valley, is that the material is staying local, and hopefully used again either on site or in the local community as soil enhancer. Winn’s Compost is our local compost processor at Ohio Gulch, and this company sells their compost to the public. Organic matter/food waste is super heavy, due to its water content. If it’s not composted locally, it will end up in the regular waste stream, and put on a 1 ton truck to be driven to the landfill in Burley, ID, about 100 miles away (Ohio Gulch is not the end point for our garbage. Just a sorting and recycling location).

Up to 9 round trips to Burley happen each day, from the Wood River Valley. So in addition to the methane released down in the landfill, the organic matter also takes up space and weight in the trucking leg of the journey, contributing even more so to the release of emissions, which could have been partially avoided.

Here are some links for reference:

• https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials
• https://www.moonshotcompost.com/blog/does-composting-produce-methane-gas-greenhouse-gases