The life of the Mercer Island Recycle Center — a life of 34 years — is approaching its end. Most likely, the downtown facility has little more than weeks of existence left. Slipping demand and dwindling funds have forced the school district, which has operated the center since its inception through the Mercer Island High School’s Committee to Save the Earth Club (CSE), to let go. Yet the end of this operation poses a serious question for the city, school district and dozens of high school students and adults who have volunteered at the center: What will replace this Island niche of conservation?
It is a question that is currently being discussed by MISD Superintendent Gary Plano, City Manager Rich Conrad and members of their staff. The two have organized a meeting between MISD business services director Dean Mack and city maintenance director Glen Boettcher this week to decide how to shut down the center. Meanwhile, both sides are brainstorming ideas for the soon-to-be vacant property.
“Where we’re going in the future is finding a new purpose for the site. It may very well have a sustainability component and, maybe, we can engage the students in this public process. But right now, we’re in this purgatory moment where the district can’t do anything more,” Conrad said.
The Mercer Island Recycle Center, wedged between Mercerdale Park and Bicentennial Park on 77th Avenue S.E., has been operating under the direction of Harry Leavitt for years. Earlier this fall, Leavitt announced that he would be retiring from the job, leaving the center in the hands of CSE students. But it would be up to them to find an advisor.
“I’m pretty worried about it,” CSE member Tyler Loughran told the Reporter earlier this year. “I’m hoping we’ll eventually find somebody. If we don’t, then the recycling center might shut down, and that would be horrible.”
Unfortunately, it has come to just that. The club can no longer afford to run the center. Market prices for recyclables have dropped steeply in the past year, and the Island facility is losing approximately $1,500 per year. What’s more, the service that the Recycle Center once provided has become nearly obsolete since the city switched to curbside recycling in the late 1980s. Today, more than 90 percent of the Island participates in Allied Waste’s curbside service, according to Conrad. The need for the center, simply stated, no longer exists.
The high school stopped using the center for its recyclables in 1996. Instead, the material is being recycled directly through the King County waste management center.
Yet there are many in the community who are hoping to revive the facility. These hopes appear to be unrealistic.
“The cost of the center is now in the negative,” Conrad said. “We’ve tried to make it abundantly clear that the district is out of the Recycle Center business.”
Yet, as the old adage goes, “When one door closes, another opens.” Plano is hoping that the school district and city can develop a new environmental project for Recycle Center volunteers to refocus their energy on. Ideas are already being pitched.
“I’ve been supportive, particularly, of the students in CSE to obtain solar panels,” Plano said, referring to a new solar energy project at MIHS. “We got a grant from the Rotary Club, and we’ll be placing solar panels on the high school. We’ll be doing wonderful things on sustainability.” (See the Reporter’s Nov. 11 forum, “Student project to bring solar panels to high school,” for the full story.)
Hopefully, the student and community volunteers who have devoted hours to the Recycle Center will soon have a new project to keep their efforts alive. One that, like the Recycle Center 34 years ago, alters the path of Islanders toward a greener future.
