The Future of Plastics Recycling in Helena - From Chair Tyler Evilsizer

   Tuesday October 15th, members of the City Commission, city employees, and recycling entities from around Helena had a very productive meeting on recycling. SAVE's position is that it is time for the City to provide permanent plastics recycling, a position that was laid out months ago during the City's budget process. We had hoped that a City-sponsored program would happen before the New Year, but following the meeting we recognize there still may be some work to ensure an effective transition to a permanent program. At the meeting, city staff expressed interest that SAVE continues to maintain the program.

   We are pleased with the program's success over the last seven years: we've seen the program grow tenfold. However, based on the tremendous popularity of the program, the scale of collections, and the challenges of ensuring safety in a winter parking lot, we believe the program has outgrown the capacity of our volunteer-driven events. We think Helena wants a permanent plastics program. We are committed to ensuring a successful transition, so SAVE will continue to run bi-monthly events until there is a permanent program in place, but we want to see a plan for a permanent collection soon, especially with the upcoming challenges of winter.  We've demonstrated that a plastics program can work, and we're ready to help the City set one up. Households in Helena and most of the Valley pay for recycling at the Transfer Station. It's time that some of the upgrades at the Transfer Station included giving residents a sheltered location where they can recycle plastics year-round .

    Read the article here for the full update on the cities plans for community and plastics recycling. As always, SAVE will be your source for information as it develops.

Tyler Evilsizer

Chairman of the Board, S.A.V.E.