We're Excited to announcing free business recycling to Wasatch County Utah. Call us!

The truth about recycling, is it can be expensive.    Trucking, sorting, baling… all have costs associated with them.   It’s no different for a business owner.   Times are tight, and the question of how to make recycling easy and affordable so it can get to a recycling center are challenges that we constantly work on.     Last week, after months of preparation we introduced low cost bins to Wasatch County, and the response was so good we went back to the drawing board.    Well, we put a pencil to it and found out we can do it 100% free.     Cardboard is worth something.   Trucking and processing it costs money.   We’ve established a route in the Heber Valley that we can haul cardboard and other recyclable materials at no cost in a struggling economy, and we’re very proud of that.

We’ve been proud to recycle Wasatch county metals for years.    We’re also proud to make a cheap alternative for Wasatch County Cardboard & Paper.   We’ve raised our buying price on steel and doing our best to make recycling worthwhile to our customers.

If your business generates recycle materials that are either thrown away or you’re even paying for, call us today!    If you’ll sort it and throw it in the recycle bin we provide we’ll do the rest.   Thank you Wasatch County!

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Each year, one of the first customs of Christmas is to get out holiday decorations, which usually means facing a mass of impossibly tangled strings of lights that have to be untangled and then tested before going on the tree or outside to decorate bushes, trees or one’s house. Many times, rather than facing this problematic task, people simply discard the old strands from their homes and apartments to buy new ones. However, these old strands may be recyclable.

Some manufacturers of LED lights accept the return of old traditional lights and send them to a recycling center that separates them into their components parts, such as glass and copper. Additionally, some merchants will give customers who turn in their old traditional lights a discount on the purchase of new LED lights. Replacing traditional lights with LED lights is becoming a popular option. Not only does this save on the electric bill, as LED lights use around 95 percent less electricity than traditional lights, but, also, unlike traditional lights, if a single bulb goes out, the rest of the strand will still turn on.

Another option for dealing with old strands of lights is donate any strands that still work to a school or charity. They can also be used as night-lights or as a means for making a patio or outside area look festive. Many people, as well as businesses, choose to leave these lights up all year, as they are decorative no matter what the season. .

Christmas trees also cause some problems, as it has been estimated that 33 million trees are sold in North America annually and a majority of them end up in landfills. If a real tree is purchased, after the holidays it can be taken to a recycling center where it will be processed into mulch. There are many municipal recycling programs that offer tree collection and process trees in this manner.

Wrapping paper is another holiday item that is great for recycling. While most wrapping paper is made from virgin materials, products made from recycled paper are also on the market. A point to keep in mind when purchasing paper is that sparkly or shiny paper, while festive, cannot be recycled.

Another option is to wrap presents in brown paper, such as grocery bags that have been cut and laid out flat. Before wrapping, children can be recruited to draw brightly colored Christmas scenes on the paper, making it more festive. It is also possible to wrap gifts in maps, or the Sunday comics, which are already brightly colored or cloth, which is the ultimate in recyclable wrapping material, as it can be folded, stored and used the next year. As this illustrates, recycling holiday items simply requires imagination.

Even though the holidays have passed, it is possible that extra lights or an unused item may still be sitting around in the garage. Tips like these serve to help those who want to tone down their amount of decorations as some items become older and unable to use anymore.  Regardless, having some of these strategies in mind for the next holiday season will only continue to help the environment in the long term.

There are some products that are highly used that can be used again.   Like Cardboard, Office paper, certain plastics, Copper, brass and Steel to name a few.

I found this video on Christmas Lights, from a recycler in China.    I thought it was interesting.    They recycle 20 million pounds of Christmas lights each year, and the plastic goes into making slippers.   The copper goes into other products that we use as well.

Just as we are doing out best to get Utah to recycle, we are doing our best to keep those products in Utah.    It makes the most sense for all of us.

Recycling can be very labor intensive.    The more you do your part by separating your plastics, your metals, your papers and your cardboard… the more it allows for keeping costs down.   Either way, we’ll recycle it.    But, from rinsing out your milk jugs to bringing us office paper in a special pile means the more it will be re-used.

We’ve had a great year.   It comes from people like you who care, and our commitment is to keep recycling and keep things that can be reused out of a landfill.     It’s discussed every day on how we can do it better.

What happened was really cool.    We had a great week.

We want to make a special thanks to the following businesses who brought in metal;

• Huge thanks to Wasatch County Events Center, who brought in metal, and donated their money from an entire ton of metal to the Heber City Food Bank.
• Heritage Blasting
• Greg Allen Construction
• J.B. Gordon Contruction

All in all, we were able to give a nice donation to the heber city food bank.    They stretch a dollar.   May not sound like much, but to a family that needs a christmas,  let alone food on the table they turn one dollar into seven dollars.

We’d like to do another promotion next week, to the toys for tots.   The Heber city search and rescue sponsors this, and we hope to do as well.

Our final ad in the Wasatch Wave is to the Wasatch County Search and Rescue’s sub for Santa.   No matter the year you’re having, maybe you can help them out as well.     Much thanks to Heber city for what has happened so far.

One bulb is out. Really?

If you’re like my family, now that thanksgiving is over I’m starting to get the eye from my wife wanting me to haul boxes out of the basement and get up on the roof to put up the tree, put up decorations, and of course, hang Christmas lights.

I hate hanging christmas lights.   I need to be honest here;  This is football season, theres some hockey going on and the NBA  just announced its going to start up again.    Clearly, I have things to do.     You’re probably totally different than me.    Hanging Christmas lights off an overhang is a tradition.     Good on ya, if it is.

One of the reasons I hate it is every single *%$$@## year I’ll haul the lights out of the basement, and at least 2 strands don’t work.  I haven’t even drug out the roof lights yet!    With all the technology in the world, how come I buy new lights every year and if one bulb fails me, the whole strand is gone?    I’m not here to occupy wall street or take up a cause, but man… I’ve got things going on and a trip to wal-mart at 8:30 seems like theres a conspiracy to me, going on somewhere.

Either way, it happens every year.    We throw away strands of Christmas lights, from some year I don’t remember buying them.   Probably last year.   Who knows.

I’m in the recycling business,  so the sting is lessened by the that one bad bulb knowing that Christmas tree lights are recyclable.     There’s copper in there, and in this economy, a few bucks is a few bucks.

My wife strung the tree, and we found 2 strands this year that were bad.     Same as all the other years.   This year, I put them in a bag and took them down to be recycled.  Do it, it’ll ease the pain.

Oh, and be careful hanging off that roof!   Remember, our Heber Location will pay you for those broken lights.

A recent ad we placed about Battery Recycling.

Recycling is here to stay.   It makes sense in so many areas, and with the population hitting 7 billion people  recently, managing our waste has become a problem that can only be solved by recycling.

Oil Recycling became popular several years ago, and oil recycling options sprung up and became useful resources that most of us know about.

Not as many people know that automotive batteries are recyclable as well.   In fact, they’re worth money.     Our Heber Recycling Center on Airport road will pay you for your old batteries by the pound.

Some interesting facts on car batteries:

• According to the U.S. EPA, 95.7 percent of automobile batteries were recycled in 2009.
• Car batteries have the highest recycling rate out of all recycled materials.
• About 60 percent of the world’s lead comes from recycled car batteries.
• Lead-acid batteries use over 80 percent of the lead produced in the U.S.
• New lead-acid batteries are composed of 60 percent to 80 percent recycled lead and plastic.

Roll off bins are big business to contractors.    When you build a house, when you tear down or remodel a house, you throw away what is mostly recyclable:   Concrete.   Paper.   Plastic Pipe.   Wood.    All of that can be used again in one way or another.    Contractors, especially now are struggling to keep businesses going, let alone finding new work.    One of the last things on their mind is recycling.    They have to make a profit to stay in business.

Another reason I’m glad we offer roll off bins.   Contractors generate waste, and we do offer the cheapest roll offs in Heber and Utah Valley.    I’ve seen roll off bins as high as $300.00, so if we can save a contractor money and recycle all of his material, then thats a good thing.

I think thats one of the ways that recycling is going to become more widespread.

If you’re a contractor, let us know if you need a roll off bin for your project.   We’ll work with you, and we dispatch same day out of our Orem, Lindon and Heber Recycling Centers.

Spent the day in Heber Today.      Hundreds of tons of trash come through here, mostly local and we divert it from the landfill, pay people for their recyclables and do our part.    Kudos to Wasatch county.

I caught this video today, which I thought was perfect for what Heber Dunn Recycling does.    it’s a bale of Aluminum, right next to a bale of cardboard I helped pick out of the trash.   Both the steel and the cardboard are going to get shipped next week so they can both be steel and cardboard again.      From the town I call home. And this is just Heber. They’re doing this all over the world.    Heber is doing its part.

This is one of our balers in Heber.   I’ll show more pictures of it later, but what you’re seeing is materials that have been compressed to the point they won’t compress anymore, and this is the finished process.   Its pushed out of the baler, where wire is wrapped and tightened from the compressed bale of materials.   From here, they’re loaded into a truck and shipped to companies that need this material for manufacturing new stuff.    Recycled Material.   Such a big difference.      Gets me out of the bed in the morning to try and do it again.   I love what I do, as much as where I live.

Everyone, from regular citizens to big business, can see the value in recycling old materials.

When I first got involved in Recycling, man I had questions…

Where are the earth freaks in burkenstocks, rallying for change?  Haven’t met one yet.   I’m cool if you show up.    They never showed.

Here’s what I found, and maybe I was a little late compared to most:   Recycling makes sense.      Not just to the guy or girl trying to save the world, worried about methane gas and global warming, but to everyone.   It makes sense to the business owner who generates a huge amount of cardboard, or plastic, or paper…    it has to if we are going to be successful.

It’s exactly  why recycling will work.   Why we’re going to change how the world makes new products.

Business owners are tying to make a buck, in a hard economy.    Having a recycling/transfer station close to their job makes sense.   less trucking means less fuel costs and road time to their bottom line, and more material in a strategically placed transfer station means more material is going to be recycled.   Convenience to a homeowner trying to do the right thing, when they have kids to raise and jobs to go to, means more items get put in a recycling center than in the trash.       Sure we all have to do our part, but a recycling center that will stick their neck out, buy land in the right place and bet on people doing the right thing has to make sense as well.

To make a shameless plug, I’m proud to be involved with Dunn Recycling.   We have recycling centers and transfer stations in the right places,  and the people who divert the trash from the landfill are all committed to recycle it.    We know that having a recycling center in the right place, means less trucking, which means less greenhouse gasses, which means the world goes on, and we can make a better way.   Not to mention when the truck or homeowner does come in, and we keep their recyclables out of the landfill.     It makes sense for Utah.     I think its how it SHOULD work.

Anyway, I digress.     Recycling isn’t just for hippies anymore.    It has to make sense for all of us to do it.   In fact, recyclers are a lot more widespread than most people realize.    Groovy man, peace out.   Are you one?