The Village of Corrales Council gave the Corrales Fire Department permission to apply for a no-match grant from the New Mexico Environmental Department’s Solid Waste Bureau during their March 27 meeting. The grant would allow the Corrales Recycling Center to add a separate trailer for product collection or an industrial baling machine for condensing recycled products.

Larry Sjoberg, a volunteer with the recycling center program since it began  in 1987, believes adding more trailers would increase the efficiency of the recycling center as well as Corrales’ recycling rate. 

“If we had more trailers we would be able to collect and have more pre-sorted products. Trailers would make our product flow better and produce a better sellable product,” he said. “We collect newspapers, magazines, catalogs and junk mail all in one container. We don’t get as good a price for it as we would if we had just newspapers, just catalogs. 

“We get a downgraded product and we only have the collection facility for one product. So we lose in that aspect.”

Another major advantage would be the addition of an industrial baling machine. With a baler, the center can avoid the middleman in recycling and get better prices because materials will already be processed and sorted correctly. The baler would help the center get as much material into their bales as possible, especially “number one” plastic bottles which tend to hold their form and are difficult to compact.

“If we had a baler we wouldn’t have to haul as often. We could make a thousand- or two thousand-pound bales of cardboard,” said Sjoberg. “When we haul 700,000 to 800,000 pounds of cardboard every week, we have to drive a considerable distance.”

But the baler comes with a drawback: You can’t use it with people around because of the safety issue. Another problem: if you have heavy bales, how do you handle them? 

“They’re big, they’re bulky and they’re heavy, so you’d need a forklift or something to hold the bales,” said Sjoberg.

During the discussion regarding the grant application sought for more equipment, Fire Chief Anthony Martinez was asked whether there have been any complaints about recycling operations. He said no, but that strong winds had recently damaged a perimeter fence, resulting in blowing trash from recycling, which had been reported.

In the past, the mayor and Village Council had discussed closing the recycling center to save money, but funds were restored, thanks to staffing and organizing from members of the fire department along with volunteers. Recently several volunteers quit after learning firefighters were being compensated for their time.

“It’s during their off time – it’s not on-duty firemen,” said Sjoberg. “And if something big does happen and they all have to go, the volunteer team can run it. The firemen are doing a real good job.”

Normal hours are every Saturday morning from 8:30 a.m. to noon. Volunteers are always welcome.