Dear Pagosa Daily Post Editor:
My husband , Chris Tanner and I own and operate Elite Recycling & Disposal, LLC – one of Archuleta County’s waste and recycle haulers. You make the statement in your third article, “Talking Trash….About the Archuleta County Landfill – Part Three” that due to the downturn in the recycle markets in the U.S., the recycle material could not be sold by the Archuleta County Recycle Center and that local haulers had no option but to put their recycle material in the landfill. This is an inaccurate statement. Elite Recycling and Disposal does not put the recycling that we collect every Friday in the Archuleta County landfill. We drive this recycling to Phoenix Recycling located at 4065 CR 307; Ignacio CO 81137 and have done so for years. We have never relied on or used the Archuleta County Recycle Center for our recyclables as it does not have the capacity to handle the volumes of material that we collect. Nor does the Archuleta County Recycle Center even accept recycle material from commercial haulers.
I would ask that you retract your statement as it relates to Elite Recycling & Disposal, LLC putting recycling we collect in the Archuleta County Landfill. Elite Recycling and Disposal DOES NOT put the recycling that we collect in the Archuleta County landfill. As was mentioned at the Archuleta County Board of Commissioners Work Session, it would be considered a fraudulent business practice to do so and I am incensed to be accused of this. I invite you to verify my statements. This can be done by asking me for the invoices I have paid to Phoenix Recycling for unloading our recycle material at their facility or by calling Phoenix Recycling and verifying that Elite Recycling & Disposal, LLC is emptying our recycling at their recycle facility.
Should the day come that Elite Recycling & Disposal, LLC has no recycle center where we can take our recycle material, that will be the day that we stop offering curbside recycling to Pagosa Springs which our company was the first to do in 2013.
In closing, I will add that although the Board of Commissioners Work Session along with your articles have created misinformation on many fronts in regards to our local landfill and the problems it faces, I can honestly say that any discussion which centers around improvements at the landfill and recognition that there are serious problems at the Archuleta County Landfill are welcome. My hope is that we can continue to pursue these discussions regarding our landfill with correct facts, which in turn would have the potential to lead to beneficial solutions to these very serious problems.
Heidi Tanner
Elite Recycling & Disposal, LLC
Pagosa Springs, CO
EDITOR’S NOTE: We have updated our May 16 editorial, mentioned above, to reflect the comments from Ms. Tanner.