Article in the Farmers’ Forum
Friday, March 1, 2002
by Dave Olson

Treasured Trash

If one person’s trash is another’s treasure, then the Clay County landfill is Fort Knox. And if you’re looking for reusable resources, James Fick holds the key.

Fick, Clay County’s resource recovery technician, can’t stand to see useful things go to waste. That’s why you can often find him combing through the Clay County demolition landfill looking for things someone else might want.

Fick says he’s amazed at what people throw away. “We just had large insulated garage doors come in. There’s just tons of stuff.”

Fick and a colleague, Kathy Maher, the county’s environmental programs coordinator, head up West Central Minnesota Material Exchange Program, also known as MATCH. The Clay County program is similar to six others around the state that look to match up people who have materials they want to dispose of with folks who can make use of the items.

In the case of Clay County, Fick will pull items from the demolition landfill, usually building materials of some kind, and stack them at the sanitary landfill for the public to look over. Last year, 109,000 pounds worth of lumber was salvaged. Fink said that amount translates to $16,335 in savings for the people who use the wood. He said the estimates $13,725 worth of miscellaneous material was also exchanged.

The Clay County program began about two years ago with grant funds and the county is now providing its own ongoing funding for the exchange. Fick said he sometimes makes suggestions to companies on how they can improve the recycling material.

In one case, he said, a Fargo window company was receiving material packaged with metal strapping, which the company found difficult to dispose of. Fick said he talked to the company’s suppliers and they began using plastic strips instead. The window maker purchased a chipping machine to grind up the strips and now what used to be waste is shipped to a company in Wisconsin that makes use of the plastic.

In another case, Fick said, shelving that was thrown away by a large department store in Moorehead was reused by the cities of Breckenridge and Detroit Lakes which recently built new waste facilities.

Maher said they are looking for a building they can turn into an exchange center. But for now, most items have to stored outdoors at the sanitary landfill.

Maher said the county sometimes puts people with items to give away in touch with those who want them. Transporting the items is up to the recipient. Fick said the sanitary landfill gets a steady stream of people looking for things. When it comes to lumber, Fick limits people to 500 board feet a week per person. “We had one guy come out and he brought five friends with him. They had trailers and they just hauled it (the lumber) away,” Fick said. Almost 900 eight-foot long studs, a staple for many building projects, were exchanged through the program last year.

Fick said when Moorhead’s Robert Asp School tore up its gym floor, the maple boards found new homes through the exchange. “You go over there (to the landfill) on hot summer days and you’ll see Jim there pulling nails out of wood,” Maher said. This time of year the traffic to the landfill slows down, but Fick said there are “still people who come out and take a look.”