January 2026

Talking Trash with TVCR: So, does it actually get recycled?

By: Teton Valley Community Recycling

Short answer: Yes! And recycling saves our County money. 

Long answer: The materials collected for recycling at the Transfer Station do in fact get recycled. How do we know? Well, Teton County Solid Waste (TCSW) sells most of our recyclables to end market buyers who pay our County the current market rate per ton. We don’t know of any business models that include paying for tons of recycling, and then paying to dump it all in a landfill. The following materials are purchased from our county, providing income to TCSW: aluminum cans, tin cans, scrap metal, cardboard, paper, and plastic. There are a few recyclable commodities that TCSW does not collect revenue on or pays someone to take away, such as used motor oil, tires, electronic waste, and household and lithium batteries. In these circumstances, TCSW partners with companies that are certified recyclers in their individual industries.

We should note that occasionally the market changes and the price per ton of a specific material plummets. This occurred with cardboard during the pandemic when suddenly there was a surge of folks buying things online. In this case, TCSW footed the bill and paid our regular cardboard buyer to recycle the cardboard. 

You may have noticed that glass isn’t mentioned above. That’s because TCSW crushes glass with a bulldozer and uses it on site as road filler and fill for the construction and demolition landfill (read about the C&D Landfill next month). Glass is reused locally rather than recycled because it isn’t economically or environmentally sound to haul such a heavy material hundreds of miles to be recycled. 

Sending trash to the landfill is the largest expense in TCSW’s budget. This fall, TCSW began sending our waste to the new landfill that opened in Newdale. Between hauling and tipping fees, putting trash in the landfill cost TCSW an average of $96.79/ton. Last month, 40 trucks hauled an average of 22 tons each to the landfill. That month of trash cost the County around $85,000. Last year, recycling revenue brought in $142,000 to the county (even after paying for select materials to be recycled). Recycling isn’t only good for the environment, it’s great for our bottom line.