Flathead County hopes to negotiate a one-year extension of its lapsed recycling contract with Valley Recycling to buy enough time to come up with a clear plan for the future of the blue recycling bins.

Discussion about the fate of the blue boxes continued at the Solid Waste Board meeting on Tuesday.

The county’s contract with Valley Recycling ended in January for the blue recycling bins at green-box collection sites and other locations at businesses and schools.

Since then, the county has been using Valley Recycling on a month-to-month basis until county leaders decide what to do about a proposed new recycling contract — the only proposal submitted by local recycling companies — that would nearly triple the county’s cost for recycling services.

County Public Works Director Dave Prunty said he has been advised by the County Attorney’s Office that the Solid Waste District can ask Valley Recycling to extend the contract, paying on a per-pull basis rather than a flat fee in the new proposed contract.

“I do see a reduction in the number of sites coming,” Prunty said.

That could mean paring down the number of blue-box sites to include only the landfill plus Somers, Creston and Columbia Falls green-box collection sites.

Blue bins currently are located at the green-box sites in Lakeside, Somers, Creston, Coram, Columbia Falls, Bigfork and Ashley Lake plus at the landfill, Albertsons, Super 1 Foods in Kalispell, Army-Navy in Evergreen and Kalispell Middle School.

The county lost $11,179 with its recycling program in July, and since 1998 has lost well over $400,000.

Prunty said the county also has the option of scrapping the recycling program altogether, though that idea fell flat among Solid Waste Board members.

Commissioner Gary Krueger, who represents the commissioners on the board, said he believes recycling should continue in some capacity.

“I never want to kill a recycling program,” Krueger said. “I want to make it more efficient.”

Valley Recycling District Manager Josh Brown cautioned that if the county removes the blue bins from the popular Super 1 and Albertsons grocery stores in Kalispell, users may continue to drop off recyclables there.

Those two sites in particular have been in place for a number of years, and “people would continue to dump there,” Brown said.

Prunty said the Solid Waste District would need an educational campaign to explain any changes in the recycling program.

County staff will work on a financial analysis of recycling costs, taking a look at how cardboard compactors at more sites may spur efficiency and reduce hauling costs.