35 years ago from tomorrow, on August 7, 1990, Recycle Utah’s founders signed the Articles of Incorporation. In honor of Recycle Utah’s 35th birthday, let’s take a look at where we started, how far we’ve come, and what the future holds for us. Recycle Utah’s story began in 1978, when Marianne Cone organized Park City’s first community recycling effort.

Though her small facility closed by 1982, it laid the groundwork for what came next. In 1988, Greg Schirf gathered a group of locals at the Wasatch Brew Pub to address Park City’s growing waste problem. That meeting—with key players like Scott Becker and Sally Elliott—sparked a new push for recycling. Becker led the charge, launching a drop-off site for newspaper, cardboard, glass, plastic, and aluminum in a rundown metal building in what is now the Walgreens parking lot. Recycle Utah incorporated in 1990 and, after a few relocations, settled into its permanent home on Woodbine Way in 1996.

Recycle Utah operates on just 0.4 acres—but in that small space, we recycle over 3.5 million pounds of material each year. With more than 400 cars coming through every day, our staff have to be efficient, knowledgeable, and adaptable. We take in 45 types of materials, many of them not accepted anywhere else locally—everything from cardboard and glass to batteries, skis, sneakers, and electronics. Our leaders, like Insa Riepen and Carolyn Wawra, have always been passionate about doing right by the community and our planet. Recycle Utah’s goal has always been natural resource conservation, saving landfill space, and making sustainability accessible to our community.

As our community continues to grow, so do its needs, and Recycle Utah is committed to growing with it. We’ve come a long way from where we started, today serving thousands of residents and diverting millions of pounds of waste each year. But we’ve reached the limits of what’s possible at our small 0.4-acre facility. To continue meeting the demand for our community’s recycling services, education, and outreach, we need more space. With the same spirit that brought us from a metal shack in a parking lot to where we are today, we look forward to building a facility that can serve Park City and Summit County for decades to come.

By Chelsea Hafer