Where Does Your Recycling Actually Go? A Behind-the-Scenes Look at McGree's Recycling Chain

Placing your recyclable materials in a specific bin for pickup every other week is just the opening step of an intricate and expensive process that helps preserve our land and waterways. Working together with local enterprises and national recycling producers allows you to help ensure that more recycled goods find their way back to store shelves and support other sustainable initiatives.

Understanding how your recycled materials are returned to sustainable products can deepen your commitment to curbside recycling efforts, and hopefully convince some of your neighbors in the Butte-Silver Bow area to join the cause. 

Curbside Pickup Across the Butte-Silver Bow Area

McGree Trucking makes curbside recycling as simple as possible for residents throughout the Butte and Silver Bow region. We provide separate recycling bins for customers and collect them on designated days every other week. 

All you need to do is toss your recyclable materials, such as plastics, cardboard, paper, and aluminum cans, into the recycle bin and wheel it to the curb the night before pickup. (Pro tip: Never put plastic bags in your recycling bin, as they will jam up equipment down the line. Take your plastic to a local supermarket or collection site.) 

McGree Trucking picks up the recycling and delivers it to sorting facilities operated by Summit Recycling. 

Sorting and Baling at Summit Recycling

Once materials are delivered to the processing floor, they are sorted into various recyclable materials using manpower and a mechanical conveyor system. 

While it's nice to think that everything you throw into your recycling bin will be salvaged for a new product, unfortunately, that's not always the case. Summit employees remove garbage and non-recyclable materials from McGree Trucking's deliveries to help maintain the best quality of product moving down the recycling line. 

Summit completes the local end of the process by compacting and baling sorted materials to prepare for transport to a material recovery facility (MRF) in Vancouver, Washington.

Shipping West for Final Reuse

Your contributions to our recycling efforts are baled and shipped to an MRF in Vancouver, where they undergo extensive sorting, cleaning, and preparation to create raw materials for other manufacturers to use in creating new plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and paper products. 

The MRF uses such advanced technology as magnets, photo-eye scanners, and air systems, along with manual sorting, to separate materials into the final stages before they are converted into raw products. 

While different materials undergo different treatments, they all must be ground down, cleaned, and reduced to their core elements before they can be reused by manufacturers to create new products. 

Keeping Montana Clean and Sustainable Since 1949

All of these processes are worth the time and effort to keep as much material as possible out of our landfills and from polluting Montana's beautiful environment. McGree Trucking has been committed to clean and sustainable refuse operations since 1949. Our partnership with Summit Recycling and the MRFs we use up the line is an outgrowth of that commitment. 

The support we receive from the Butte and Silver Bow community and the larger subscriber base we can build makes curbside recycling a sustainable enterprise and one that improves lives for our current and future generations. 

Contact us today to sign up for curbside recycling service at your home and help us divert more tons of trash from our landfills.