On July 1 Wadena County will join five other counties in organized Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) collection, commissioners decided at their June 1 meeting. Wadena County’s current HHW collection arrangement with Becker County ends June 30.

Mike Hanan, now Solid Waste Director for three counties, told the board that Otter Tail County is already providing HHW collection for Grant, Wilkin, Stevens, Steele, and Otter Tail citizens through an arrangement that pools state grant money that counties receive for the costs of solid waste collection and disposal.

Wadena County needs another county to do the HHW collection because Wadena has no approved HHW storage facility.

Otter Tail County provides HHW collection services using a mobile collection vehicle that makes scheduled stops in each county throughout the summer months. Collections are not done in the winter. Hanan said that from May 1 to Oct. 15, collections are done in Otter Tail County every Thursday and on several Saturdays, announced in advance.

A schedule of HHW collections for Wadena County will be worked out, possibly at the June 17 county board meeting.

Hanan, who became Wadena County Solid Waste Director on Jan. 1 and Todd County Solid Waste Director last month, also heads Otter Tail County’s Solid Waste Department. He has been instrumental in creating opportunities for central Minnesota counties to share equipment, services and personnel and to streamline solid waste collection and processing.

Hanan was recently appointed executive director of the Prairie Lakes Municipal Solid Waste Authority (PLMSWA) Joint Powers Board, which now owns and operates the

Perham Resource Recovery

Facility (PRRF), known as “the garbage incinerator”.

Wadena, Todd, Becker, and Otter Tail Counties belong to the PLMSWA Joint Powers board.

Hanan told the board that he wants to “move toward source separation”

of recyclable materials collected

in Wadena County. “Source separation” means

that citizens sort their recyclables into different containers - aluminum, steel, paper, glass, cardboard, and plastic – and don’t mix them together in one container. Sorting the materials makes them more valuable to buyers.

Currently, Otter Tail County processes source separated recyclables for Grant, Wilkin, Traverse, and Otter Tail counties, and sells them to the recyclable materials market. The counties are then paid for their recycled materials. But Wadena County does not require citizens to separate their recyclables, and Wadena County is paying Waste Management to haul the materials away, instead of selling the recycled materials for cash. Hanan thinks Wadena County should be making money on its recyclables, not paying for them to be taken away.

“I hope that in a year, we can begin to sell ours,” Hanan said.

An energy consultant recommended this to Wadena County three years ago, but no action was taken on that recommendation.

Hanan also wants to expand the combustion capacity of the PRRF, and add a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) building to the PRRF. The MRF would be a place to sort the garbage that is coming in to the PRRF, and remove the glass and aluminum that are currently causing problems at the PRRF. The glass and aluminum items that people throw into their garbage instead of recycling them, end up at the PRRF and go into the incinerator, where they melt and clog the burners with slag.

In other business, the board:

o ACCEPTED the low bid of $131,899 from AAA Striping Service Company of St Michael, Minnesota, to provide road striping services for the county in 2010.

o APPROVED the purchase of a used 1995 R-Way Belly Dump Trailer from Holt Truck & Trailer of Cokato, Minnesota, for $20,767, to save the county money by buying equipment instead of renting it.

o APPROVED a contract with Meadow Township for replacement of Township Bridge No. L7125 in the 2011 construction season.