DEQ’s Dusti Johnson Spends Time in Eureka

Recycle Eureka Board of Directors Solicits Help from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality

The Recycle Eureka Board would like to thank Dusti Johnson for giving of her time and expertise to help establish a viable recycling program for household waste in the Tobacco Valley. In addition, special thanks to Krista Tincher for her ongoing and outstanding coverage of our efforts. Ms. Tincher’s recent article from the Tobacco Valley News is quoted in italics below:

Say you are trying to make a business out of firewood cutting. But you only have an axe. You manage to chop up a few pieces of wood, and try to sell them. Are you going to make it as a firewood cutter?

The answer to that question applies to any business - including recycling, explained Dusti Johnson, recycling and market development specialist for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

You need proper equipment to start a business, and the volume to make it profitable to sell your resource. Buy a chain saw and a truck and cut a few cords at a time to sell, and you’re in business.

The same goes for recycling.

And the main problem with getting a recycling program up and running, she noted, is the way that people view it.

“It is not a public service - and recycling is not free,” said Johnson. “It’s no different than buying food, or paying for garbage collection.”

In this case, garbage is the resource. And recycling is the name of the business.

And those that have seen recycling become a successful venture have treated it as a business. “Can it be profitable? Yes,” said Johnson. “If it’s run like a business.” Given the right market and enough time to get a good client base, recycling can begin to be profitable. Eventually, she noted, some businesses even are able to pay clients back for some of their goods. “But in really small, outlying areas, you’ve got to band together,” Johnson pointed out. “If you’ve got a guy sitting over here with one tree, he’s not going to make it in the firewood business.”

Johnson paid a visit to Eureka recently, to meet with the Recycle Eureka board and offer help in examining Eureka’s potential for a recycling market. She was impressed with the amount of research and effort that the board had already invested in implementing a program. They have gone beyond the call of duty, she said. “They seem to really understand what they’re faced with.” The group looked at what has worked in other communities, and Eureka’s unique concerns. Every community has different needs - and mindsets, noted Johnson.

“It’s a community attitude,” said Johnson. “If the community doesn’t want it, it’s not going to work.”

Alice Elrod of Recycle Eureka said that Johnson’s insights were encouraging and helpful. They were able to discuss approaches to recycling from angles they hadn’t yet considered, she said. “It was very exciting, very enlightening” she added.

“That time with her was so valuable, so educational,” put in Carole Tapp of Recycle Eureka. “She gave us some small, bite-sized pieces to chew on. We have a renewed enthusiasm about (recycling).”

As a result, Recycle Eureka is taking new action - and the long-term course of action will depend upon the feedback they receive from Tobacco Valley residents. On the weekend of August 15 and 16, the group will hold the Tobacco Valley’s first recycling drive. They are encouraging individuals to save such items as numbers one and two plastics, all types of paper and corrugated cardboard, and aluminum cans over a period of a couple of months - and then on the weekend of the recycling drive, haul it in to the drop-off point. With enough participation, the cost of transporting the recyclables out of the Tobacco Valley could be mitigated. Judging by the community’s participation in August’s recycling drive, they may continue to be able to hold regular periodic recycling drives.

The group is also investigating ways to use recycled crushed glass as a building material in local construction projects that would normally require concrete. A recycled glass-fly ash mix has proven to be an excellent building material, said Tapp. She’s seen examples, she said - “and I’m here to tell you, it’s beautiful.” The product is not only beautiful, she noted, but strong and durable - for all the reasons that glass is such a burden on landfills. It simply doesn’t break down.

But a recycling program simply can’t ride on the backs of volunteers for long, warned Johnson. “It has to be a sustainable program. I encourage those people who want to recycle to get on board and be a part of the solution. Get on board - because they need the help.”

The resource seems to be there, noted Johnson, but Eureka - and Montana - needs to develop the needed infrastructure for recycling. Looking at local surveys, the amount of cardboard the Tobacco Valley throws out alone could be quite valuable. She’s spent a lot of time in landfills, she said, and looking at what people simply throw away. “We’re extremely wasteful,” she said. In places where recycling is well established, such as Europe, she pointed out - people seem to look at garbage a different way. “They look at it like a valuable resource,” she said. “It’s a lot easier to harvest out of the waste stream than to harvest virgin materials,” she said.

“Everyone’s got to start somewhere,” Johnson added. “If (the Tobacco Valley) wants it, and they really are that passionate about it, it will happen.” But the area has to rally together to get on board, she said - and realize that recycling is not a public service. “It’s just pure business. If you stop viewing it as trash, and look at it as a commodity, then things all of a sudden change.”