Lakeland News: Aitkin County Plans to Improve Recycling Rates in Rural Counties

Aitkin County Plans to Improve Recycling Rates in Rural Counties

In 2022, Aitkin County Residents produced 2.2 tons of recyclables, and the county hopes to increase that number with the help of a near $92,000 grant from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to subsidize the cost of curbside collection of recyclables outside of the city of Aitkin in rural communities.

The state of Minnesota began promoting and encouraging recycling in the early 1990s. Aitkin County received grant money to build its current recycling facility which was completed in 1991. Then in 2022, grant money was received to help bring easier recycling methods to the more rural parts of Aitkin County. To do that, the county has partnered with the company ‘Recyclops’ to develop a ‘Uber-Like’ Curbside Pickup Service.

“They hire local people of Aitkin County to use their own vehicles to go in a rural county and pick up curbside recycling for folks.” says Andrew Carolstrom, the Aitkin County Environmental Services Director, “We started in March of 2024 and we had hoped to sign up 625 customers. Right now, we currently have less than 100, but we were just hoping to get the word out to take more things out of our landfill and encourage people to recycle in rural Minnesota.’

Since 2014, ‘Recyclops’ has grown to provide recycling services to 19 states across major cities, but this will be the first venture for the company though into rural areas.

“Aitkin County is about 15,000 people and we only have to drop off recycling one in McGregor and one here in Aiken.” adds Carolstrom, “And so we just thought it would be a great opportunity to make it more easily, easily accessible and bring the recycling right to their doorstep and offer that service.

Recyclops uses an app for its services, and it’s modeled to resemble Uber-Eats or Door-Dash with how it operates. You simply enter your address where the waste can be picked up, then one of the drivers for Recyclops comes and picks it up.

“When I get there, I will take a picture of the recycling that they have out and then I will upload it, and if they don’t have any recycling out that day, then I simply take a picture of the end of the driveway and I just market as an incomplete that there’s no recycling out and I move on to the next position.” says Jason Meyer, a Recyclops Driver.

The Aitkin County Recycling Curbside Pickup is available in the townships of Aitkin, Farm Island, Nordland, and Spencer. You can go to the website Recyclops.com and type in your address to see if your home is in the area that they operate.