Helena recycling rises by 3,000 tons as habits shift

Helena homes are sending more cardboard, batteries and electronics into the recycling stream, and the city’s totals climbed from 7,652 tons in 2020 to 10,693 tons in 2025. That 3,041-ton increase shows a steady shift in what residents throw away and how often they use the city’s system.

At the Helena Transfer Station, staff say more than 100 people a day now drop off recyclable material, while about 1,500 residents use curbside recycling. The City of Helena says city and Scratch Gravel residents can bring household recyclables to the transfer station at no additional cost because recycling is paid for through residential solid waste fees. In addition to curbside service and the transfer station, the city offers recycling through seven community drop-off locations in the Helena valley.

The mix of what is being recycled is changing along with daily life in Helena. Less paper is coming through the system as people rely more on digital communication, while cardboard has become a bigger part of the load as online shopping keeps growing. City staff are also seeing more electronic waste and batteries, a sign that more households are replacing devices, chargers and small rechargeable products that were rare in older waste streams. In practical terms, the bins now reflect modern household habits as much as they do environmental commitment.

What happens after drop-off matters, too. Helena staff use contracts with Pacific, Momentum and Helena Recycling to move material through the system, and glass collected in Helena is hauled to Momentum Recycling in Salt Lake City. The city’s recycling setup is part of a broader city-county framework: Lewis and Clark County says solid waste is managed by the City of Helena Solid Waste Division through an interlocal agreement established in 2015.

The city has also had to respond to the risks that come with newer waste streams. In 2024, Helena expanded its lithium battery recycling program after fires linked to discarded lithium batteries, including incidents at city solid waste services and the Lewis and Clark County landfill. That public-safety concern sits alongside Helena’s longer-term waste goals, set by the City Commission in 2021, to cut landfill waste by 35% by 2030 and by 50% by 2040. The numbers suggest Helena’s recycling system is no longer a side service; it is a heavily used piece of the city’s day-to-day infrastructure.