Recycle Hi-Line - 6 years old

Some day, generations down the road, people will be mining the area where the landfill east of Havre is now located, Hill County Sanitarian Clay Vincent believes.

They will be looking for things of value — the cans, bottles, plastics — that we now bury at the landfill.

So Vincent, who supervises the landfill for the Unified Disposal District, has an idea. Why don’t we mine those materials today? We should make sure they don’t end up at the landfill. Instead, we should recycle the plastics, glass and other materials that now end up there.

“Why put them in the landfill,” he said of the materials. “Why not use them again?”

The recycling efforts on the Hi-Line are behind some parts of Montana, but starting this month, a landmark will be reached. Recycle Hi-Line, the entirely volunteer-driven organization that encourages and assists with recycling, will celebrate its sixth birthday.

The group has been an educational, advocacy and service organization that has pushed for recycling.

“They are volunteers, and they are taking the necessary first steps,” Vincent said. “You’ve got to walk before you run.”

Candi Zion, a enthusiastic recycling supporter and Recycle Hi-Line chair since the group was founded, hopes the group will be able to do more running, but she’s pleased at what the group has accomplished since the program started with a handful of supporters and had its first meeting in May 2008.

She recalled a large group showed up for the first meeting at Triangle Communications. While a good number of people were willing to support the recycling cause, the number willing to do the work was smaller.

She, Bob Doney, Tom Tucker, Charlie Gallus and a few others put their heart and soul into it.

Tom Tucker went to large institutions, such as Northern Montana Hospital and schools, and carted away some recyclable materials.

Others worked on educational programs. They encouraged people to take their recyclable materials to Havre Day Activities Center and Pacific Steel and Recycling.

A key moment in the group’s history was in the spring of 2009, when Recycle Hi-Line teamed up with Havre Pride.

Havre Pride has held twice-annual community cleanups for the last 25 years. Volunteers go out and pick up trash and return it to a central location each spring and the week before Festival Days.

For the last five years, Recycle Hi-Line has set up shop so people can bring newspapers, plastic and other recyclable goods to a central location.

The turnout was amazing, Zion recalls.

Eventually, it became clear that twice a year wasn’t enough. Monthly programs were established — first at 1st Street and 5th Avenue. Then that location became overcrowded with lines of cars backed up onto 5th Avenue.

Now, the monthly sessions — the third Saturday of each month — are held at Holiday Village Mall.

Spinoffs are taking place throughout north-central Montana.

Chinook and Fort Benton have looked to Havre for advice in setting up their programs, and now Harlem is making noises about following suit.

For all the successes, Zion and Vincent agree more needs to be done.

Lots more people are recycling, but “a lot more than a majority are not recycling,” Vincent said.

Some Montana communities have adopted programs to require recycling, they point out. But mandatory regulations won’t be popular,

“We Montanans don’t like being told what to do,” Zion said.

Financial incentives and educational programs, however, may convince more people to take part, she said.

Vincent said one reason for recycling is to put less in the landfill, though the present landfill has more than a century left, he said.

But measures to encourage recycling will have many other benefits, such as a cleaner environment for all of the Hi-Line.

Curbs on plastic bags — or at least incentives not to use them — would result in fewer bags blowing in the wind over the Hi-Line landscapes.

While Recycle Hi-Line celebrates its sixth anniversary, its organizers know there is a lot of work yet to do, and they are ready to start doing it.

(John Kelleher is managing editor of the Havre Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected], 406-265-6795, ext. 17, or 406-390-0798.)