Earlier this year, I wondered why it seemed that recycling options in Color Country were either few or none: A Measure of the Distance We Have Still To Go. After reviewing the recycling options available in St. George, I concluded that, “I can understand why people might not be waiting in line to recycle in Color Country.”

(Click the graphic for a larger image.)

But on Tuesday, November 13, those options took a giant leap forward with the grand opening of a new recycling center.

First, the new center has a relatively inviting entrance. (A concrete pad that wasn’t covered with trash. The only alternative in St. George ‘features’ a dirt driveway that’s only big enough for one car and looks like half the dirt is really broken bottles and nails.)

But in a more functional vein, they take everything: metal, plastic, paper, cardboard … and glass! Before this, the only genuine recycling center that accepted glass was in Las Vegas!

In fact, the only real problem with this recycling center is that it’s in Cedar City. That makes it a less attractive option for people in St. George and thereabouts. Still … my household will be making the trip to Cedar City with plastic barrels full of glass bottles and plastic containers every now and then anyway. And we’ll be doing a little shopping, buying a little gas, maybe having lunch while we’re there. (That’s just in case any St. George business owners happen to be reading this.)

While I was there for the grand opening, I asked Perry Holmes, a consultant who helped make the center possible, why Cedar City had this center and St. George didn’t. Perry said that he had tried for eight years to interest anyone in St. George in this kind of thing and just couldn’t find the support. He said the critical factor was that there were people in Cedar City who wanted it to happen.

That certainly seemed to be right based on the grand opening.

To begin with, there was actually a nice turnout. (There were four people who came all the way from my home base in the People’s Republic of Springdale to be there.) They had a nice (vegetarian!) hot lunch complete with Earth shaped cookies-on-a-stick for desert. (From Artful Edibles! 435-865-6418)  and free baseball caps from one of the partners in the new center, M & C Logistics of Cedar City. (And, yes, that’s a “Best Friends” shirt she’s wearing!)

It actually seemed like a celebration among friends who all did their part to create the center. The friends are mainly members of the Southern Utah Recycling Coalition. Another key element was the National Park Service. As it turns out, the featured new (well … actually … “recycled”) piece of equipment, the glass pulverizer, was donated because it was sitting at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon rusting away and not being used for anything. Official representatives from Cedar Breaks National Monument, Bryce Canyon National Park, and Zion National Park were there to celebrate the opening. Jenifer Harris, owner of Blue Sky Services (435-673-1400), previously the only way to recycle glass in Color Country because they hauled it all the way to Las Vegas, described how this new center would revitalize their business and what they could offer customers.
 
For the grand finale, we toasted the recycled glass pulverizer with fake champaign, tossed the empty bottles in the hopper, and recycled them.