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EDITOR’S NOTE: CARTM is on the Tillamook County Board of Commissioners agenda tomorrow Wednesday, September 19th, and we will have an update as soon as the meeting concludes. Here is a bit of CARTM history and suggestion for solutions.
In the summer of 1989 I started working as an attendant at what then was known as the Manzanita Transfer Station. Every Saturday morning I would bring a small drop box truck loaded with empty barrels for recycling bottles and tin up to Manzanita from Tillamook. People could leave there bottles and cans in the barrels and at the end of the day I would load it up and bring back to Tillamook. We had 2 big drop boxes, just as they have today, plus one other one that people could put large metal objects in for recycling. I would spend the day taking compressors out of old refrigerators and collect money to from those who wanted throw their trash away. Back then we didn’t have scales and we would charge $20 a cubic yard for trash. It was expensive!
I’m telling you this because it was a one man operation. I know things have changed but it seems to me that CARTM has overextended themselves. Recyclables have always been a fickle business even 30 years ago. Why can’t the transfer station be scaled down again? Why can’t the staff be scaled down to just volunteers? I believe that CARTM should be scaled down to just receiving trash at this time and people can take their recyclables to Tillamook Transfer Station. You could “recycle pool” down to Tillamook.
The bottom line is that the way CARTM operates now is financially unsustainable.
Rick Krane, Nehalem
