Recycling woes

It was September 2005 when I reached my third year in business, and since that day I have been doing a lot of reflection. When I first created New World Recycling, I had big dreams of being a part of a real movement in this valley towards progressive thinking.

For me, recycling is the very heart of environmentalism. It affects our air, our water, deforestation, mining, oil production, our rivers and streams, landfill space and just about every aspect of human existence.

Recycling isn't a choice, it's an absolute requirement. This business has always been about making that requirement more convenient.

I didn't get into recycling to make a million dollars. In fact, I would rather have a million trees than a million dollars, but until America returns to a self-reliant nation of farmers, artists, craftsmen, hunters and ranchers, the dollar bill will continue to be important.

As New World Recycling, I set my rates at a level that I hope would allow all 60,000 people in this valley to use my service. Let's analyze 10 dollars for a moment. Three video rentals, dinner for one, a quarter tank of gas, two glasses of wine. With that said, it's hard for me to understand why I only have 186 pickups. The streets of the Flathead Valley should be lined with recycling binds at these rates.

In three years, I have probably passes out around 25,000 fliers, and still my customer base remains small. Now, I realize that I may have the reputation for being a little crazy at times, and that's probably a fair assessment. In my defense, I am blown away on a daily basis by people and their recycling practices.

As a child in the Bay Area, I was very young when I first realized the difference between a newspaper and a bottle. I realize that here in Montana, some people make it into their 40s and 50s before they make the same distinction, I'm learning that perspective, but I don't always have it.

Now to the point of this letter. I'm broke. For years now, this has been a labor of love. The rates I set were designed to sign up everyone, but what I've learned is that in this valley of 60,000 people, less than 5 percent recycle, and of that 5 percent, only about 4 percent of that group use my service. The other 96 percent is content to just continue contaminating the drop bins.

It's a lot of percentages that all lead to one conclusion. I've come up with two possible options, and I figured I would lay them out to my customers and then determine the best solution of for all. The first option is to increase my rates.

The second option is to return to California, where I have a friend in the process of making a home that runs entirely off the utility grid. He has offered me tepee and board in exchange for assistance, and I have given myself until the spring to decide. Although the experience of building a self-reliant home would benefit me in ways that I could never measure.

I can still envision a time when New World Recycling reaches as many as the Flathead Electric Cooperative, and the company not only collects recycling but processes it and returns plastic and paper products back to the valley in a glorious circle of efficiency.

Recycling companies staff six times the people landfills do, and when a recycling company gets big, it doesn't close down and move somewhere else.

So these are the options I have come up with. If the result is me blowing up New World Recycling and moving away, then I am content in the effort I put forth, and I appreciate the support I received regardless of the numbers,

Cory Cullen

Whitefish