Recycle Utah has been looking for a new home for almost a decade, and for Executive Director Carolyn Wawra, that search is coming to an end.
She said Recycle Utah wants to join High Valley Transit, Summit County and Mountain Regional Water, which are all building facilities along Old Highway 40 in Silver Summit.
Wawra attended a tour of the construction site set up by the Summit County Council last month.
“It was pretty eye opening, just how complicated that piece of property is from the bedrock that High Valley Transit’s been dealing with on their site, to the way they're moving around all the rock on the property,” she said.
“It was really eye opening to me to see the hard work Summit County is putting in to make that property work for, hopefully, Recycling Utah among some other partners.”
Recycling Utah has been planning to move since before Wawra became its executive director six years ago.
Urgency has only increased. She said Recycle Utah leases its current location off of Kearns Boulevard from Park City, and it sits between the recently approved Homestake affordable housing project and the Bonanza Park area, which is up for redevelopment.
When those projects get underway, Wawra said Recycle Utah’s facility will become a road.
“Ideally, we want to be out of that site in time for that to happen versus operate temporarily—or not at all, for a while,” Wawra said. “So we're trying to be proactive in ensuring we can continue operating our recycling center for the future.”
Although Silver Summit seems the most promising location right now, the recycling center has considered other areas in the past. That includes a property on the north side of state Route 248 at Richardson Flat Road.
Recycle Utah surveys people who visit their facility. The data shows about a third live in 84060, a third live in 84098 and the rest are scattered, many driving in from Kamas.
The important thing, Wawra said, is to have a bigger facility that can divert more waste away from local landfills.
“Right now, we sit on 0.4 acres, and ideally, we'd like to be operating on 2.5 to 3 acres,” Wawra said.
Details still need to be ironed out between Recycle Utah, the county and the city before any move is official.
Wawra said a new location needs be locked in by the end of this year in order to open a new facility in time for 2025. Right now, it’s looking like that location could be Silver Summit.
