2017
A special publication of the
Earth Day weekend events Saturday, April 22 and Sunday, April 23 Free Entrance Days in the National Parks: The fee waiver includes entrance fees, commercial tour fees and transportation entrance fees. Other fees such as reservation, camping, tours, concession and fees collected by third parties are not included unless stated otherwise. Saturday, April 22 8:45 a.m.-noon:
Teller Wildlife Refuge work day, fence removal, weeding, nesting platforms). In the Bitterroot Valley near Corvallis.
9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.:
Missoula Art Park events, 335 N. Pattee St. • Earth Day Explorations in Art and Science, begins at Missoula Art Museum, 9:30 a.m.-noon Join Watershed Education Network and Missoula Art Museum for a discovery field trip to the Clark Fork River to examine and draw aquatic specimens. This is an all-ages workshop. • En Plein Air Coffee Club, meets at Missoula Art Park, 10 a.m. Meet up with artist, organizer and Adventure Cycling tour specialist Whitney Ford-Terry for an informal morning bicycle
ride with coffee. Bring your own coffee brewing setup and stove. Beans provided by Black Coffee Roasting Co. Visit therethere.space/ coffeeclub for details. • Free Bike Tune-Ups, Missoula Art Park, 11 a.m.1:30 p.m. FreeCycles offers free tuneups to get your bike ready for spring.
Join Missoula In Motion, city of Missoula Public Art and city parks for a bike tour of public art and champion trees. The ride will begin at Missoula Art Museum, travel along family-friendly routes, end at FreeCycles, and last about 2 hours.
10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.:
Missoula Parks & Rec’s Run for Trees at Silver Park
• Saturday+ Earth Day Conversation with By the Bike Artists, Missoula Art Park, noon-1 p.m. Gather in the Missoula Art Park for an engaging conversation with artists of the park’s inaugural exhibition inspired by bicycles, By the Bike: Anne Appleby and Kim Reineking, Whitney Ford-Terry, Keith Goodhart, Jeremy Hatch and Patrick Zentz.
10 a.m.-1 p.m.:
• Earth Day Art and Arbor Ride, begins at Missoula Art Park, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
2-5 p.m.:
Clark Fork River cleanup at Caras Park
1-5 p.m.:
Wildlife Habitat Gardens tour, University of Montana Native American Center. ($10)
1-3 p.m.:
Rally and March for Science from Caras Park along the Clark Fork River
Tree planting, Milltown State Park, meet at bluff overlook,
1353 Deer Creek Road
3-7 p.m.:
MUD’s Earth Day celebration at Free Cycles, 732 S. First St. W. Theme: Environmental and Climate Literacy. Engaging conversations, panels, teach-ins, workshops, kids’ activities, the Earth Day Expo, and of course local vendors, beverages and music.
7-10 p.m.:
UM FLAT celebration at Free Cycles
6 p.m.:
Global Gauntlet (fundraiser for Montana World Affairs Council), 5th Annual Global Team Trivia Fundraiser, DoubleTree Hotel Ballroom. Enjoy a casual dinner menu, live auction and lively team trivia.
Sunday, April 23 Noon-4 p.m.:
DIG DAY. Put food gardens in Missoula yards. Meet at Caras Park.
2 Earth Day
April 22, 2017
PHOTO BY JEREMY DRAKE The trash cans of Missoula generate 210,000 pounds of material that ends up in the local landfill. Missoula residents are embracing the concept of zero waste with the hope of diverting 90 percent of Missoula’s trash from the landfill by 2050. Estimated value of conventional recyclables we throw away in Missoula every year is $5 million. Based on an anecdotal study by Bradley Layton at Missoula College. Chase Jones Energy Conservation and Climate Action Coordinator City of Missoula On an average year, Missoula residents and visitors send 210,000 pounds of material to the landfill, consuming open space, wasting precious resources, contributing pollutants to our land and water and emitting greenhouse gases. However, Missoula joined a growing nationwide movement last year to rethink our relationship with trash and set the intention to become a Zero Waste community. On Feb. 8, 2016, the Missoula City Council adopted the 2016 Missoula Zero Waste Resolution. This resolution set in motion the development of a communitywide Zero Waste plan with a goal of reducing 90 percent of what our community sends to the landfill by 2050. The initiative, known as ZERO by FIFTY: Missoula’s Pathway To Zero Waste, is aimed at improving air and water quality, conserving valuable resources, preserving open space and reducing greenhouse gas emissions while stimulating our economy and creating jobs. “Missoula values clean air, clean water, open space, a healthy community and a vibrant economy. ZERO by FIFTY is a response to those values. The idea is that with some thoughtful planning, we can change our systems to align with those values and create the type of community and quality of life our community envisions today and for future generations,” said Chase Jones, City of Missoula Energy Conservation and Climate Action Coordinator. The Missoula Zero Waste Resolution adopts the concept of Zero Waste as defined by the Zero Waste International Alliance: “Zero Waste is a goal that is ethical, economical, efficient and visionary…where all discarded materials are designed to become resources for others to use. Zero Waste means designing and managing products and processes to systematically avoid and eliminate the volume and toxicity of waste and materials, conserve and recover all resources, and not burn or bury them. Implementing Zero Waste will eliminate all discharges to land, water or air that are a threat to planetary, human, animal or plant health.” “The Zero Waste concept reflects the classic notion of the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle and that order is important,” Jones said. “To achieve our Zero Waste goals we must ‘reduce’ first, ‘reuse’ whenever possible and then ‘recycle’ what is left. Most folks default to recycling immediately, and recycling is important, but we cannot recycle our way to Zero Waste.”
The ZERO by FIFTY initiative, led by the City of Missoula with its community nonprofit partner, Home ReSource, recently hosted three community listening sessions. At the sessions, citizens broke into small groups to answer the questions: 1) Why do you care about reducing waste in Missoula? 2) What are the barriers to reducing waste in Missoula? and 3) What are the most urgent and most important recommendations to be included in the forthcoming plan? “What we heard is that Missoulians don’t want to waste. We want to live in a clean, sustainable community and want our kids and grandkids to have even more opportunities that way,” said Katie Deuel, Executive Director of Home ReSource. “As to how we are going to get there, participants overwhelmingly spoke up for more education on why and how to reduce waste and recommended that we’ve got to make reducing waste easy, accessible and affordable. “ Participants also spotlighted increasing composting and deconstructing instead of demolishing buildings as ways to make the biggest difference quickly, she said. “ZERO by FIFTY is a very concrete, doable goal that contains a multitude of opportunities to create new businesses and support and strengthen our economy and community,” Deuel said. “It is really a fun project to work on with the support of so many community partners.” The ZERO by FIFTY leadership team, along with its community-based Zero Waste Advisory Committee, is busy distilling feedback gathered at the community listening sessions. At the same time, they are studying plans from other communities and talking to leaders from those communities to learn from their zero waste efforts. “We will couple the ideas gathered in our community listening sessions with foundational strategies and best practices learned from our Zero Waste colleagues in other communities into a draft. Our goal is to have a ZERO by FIFTY draft plan ready for public comment in July,” said Jones. “This plan has really been driven by the citizens of Missoula, so we are excited to present it to them in July to make sure we heard them, incorporated their ideas and are headed in the right direction to achieve the community’s goals and vision.” The City of Missoula will incorporate public comment and refine the plan into a final draft by late fall. The ZERO by FIFTY plan recommendations will include short-, medium- and long-term actions to set the course to achieve the 90 percent waste reduction goal by 2050. It will be presented to the community and City Council for adoption by the end of calendar year 2017, two months ahead of the deadline outlined in the City Council resolution. For more information visit http:// www.zerobyfiftymissoula.com .
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April 22, 2017
Earth Day 3
Quiz WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT ZERO WASTE IN MISSOULA? 1. Please rate your knowledge of zero waste: A. B. C. D. E.
No knowledge (Never heard of it before) Beginner (Know a little about the topic) Moderate (Understand the basic concept and principal) Knowledgeable (Know enough about the topic to explain the basics) Advanced (Know a lot about the topic and could teach someone else)
2. Why Bother? A. B. C. D. E.
Zero waste is good for the planet. Zero waste is good for the economy. Zero waste is good for public health. Zero waste is good for the climate. All of the above.
3. Do you think Montanans produce more or less waste than the average American? A. B.
More Less
4. For every pound of waste we generate, how many pounds of waste are generated in resource extraction, manufacturing, and distribution of the stuff we buy and use? A. B. C. D.
Metal Cardboard Plastic Glass Paper
Cardboard Food Scraps & Wasted Food Electronics Constructions and Demolition Debris Diapers
8. What is the value of material when disposed at a landfill (Average for Montana landfills)? A. B. C. D. E.
$920/ton $515/ton $240/ton $105/ton $45/ton
9. What is the value of material when reused (Based on 2016 data from Home Resource)? A. B. C. D. E.
$920/ton $515/ton $240/ton $105/ton $45/ton
A. B. C. D.
90% waste stream reduction by 2050 60% waste stream reduction or better by 2040 40% waste stream reduction or better by 2030 30% waste stream reduction or better by 2025
11. The Missoula Zero Waste Plan will . . .
6. Can we recycle our way to zero waste? A. B.
A. B. C. D. E.
10. What is the goal of the Missoula Zero Waste Resolution?
½ LB 2 LB 21 LB 71 LB
5. What is the hardest material to recycle in Missoula? A. B. C. D. E.
7. Which two waste streams make up more than half of everything we throw away?
Yes No
A. B. C. D.
Identify objectives & actions to get Missoula to Zero Waste Require no changes of Missoulian’s waste behaviors Be written without input from the community Do all the work of reducing waste by itself
12. Please rate your knowledge of zero waste now:
*Answers on page 5
A. B. C. D. E.
No knowledge (Never heard of it before) Beginner (Know a little about the topic) Moderate (Understand the basic concept and principal) Knowledgeable (Know enough about the topic to explain the basics) Advanced (Know a lot about the topic and could teach someone else)
Missoula Building Industry Association’s
2nd Annual Garage Sale Reduce, Reuse, Recycle this Earth Day! Saturday, April 22nd from 8am-4pm 3495 W. Broadway Direct Source MT Accepting cash and credit cards. Enjoy The Wild Weenie food truck! Visit buildmissoula.com for details. Cabinets, granite, showers, tubs, toilets, lighting, doors, bathroom hardware, windows, and much more!
Sponsored by:
• Hiking Fitness (KangaTrail) • Stroller Fitness (Kanga On Wheel) • Indoor Kangatraining (Mom & Baby Fitness classes) • Family Fitness Hikes • Kinderpack Baby Carriers & Consultations • Strengthening families through nature, fitness, and education.
www.growingupgreenmissoula.com
4 Earth Day
April 22, 2017
Recycling Celebrate Earth Day on April 22
FACTS
Recycling a stack of newspapers approximately
3
More than 28 billion glass bottles and jars end up in landfills every year — the equivalent of filling up
FEET HIGH
saves one tree
100 MILLION
Recycled newspaper can be used to make …
TREES
2
21.5M TONS of food waste each year.
See how many hours of energy, normally used to power household appliances, can be saved by recycling the following items: (in hours) Recycled items 10 aluminum cans 10 glass bottles 10 plastic bottles 10 magazines 10 plastic bags
BUILDINGS
US generates
JUNK MAIL
Recycle 10, save hours Air conditioner 1.7 .7 .8 .1 .1
STATE
every 3 weeks
are ground up each year to produce
masking tape paper money bandages lamp shades cofee ilters
EMPIRE
Hair dryer 1.7 .7 .8 .1 .1
Laptop 51.8 20.9 25.4 2.8 3.4
60W CFL bulb 199.5 80.2 97.8 10.8 13.1
Source: EPA.gov/recycle
The EPA estimates that 75% of American waste is recyclable, but we only recycle about 30%.
Composting all that waste would reduce the same amount of greenhouse gas as taking 2 million cars
OFF THE ROAD
5 RECYCLED
PLASTIC BOTTLES
provides enough fiber to fill one ski jacket
we recycle
non-recyclable
Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.
Glass can be recycled and remanufactured an
infinite amount
we could recycle, but don’t
Recycling
1CAN ALUMINUM
of times and never wear out saves enough energy to power a TV for three hours
up to
Recycled glass can be substituted for of raw materials
95%
Sources: dosomething.org, recycleacrossamerica.org, gpi.org, kab.org, greenteam.org, epa.gov
April 22, 2017
Earth Day 5
MUD’S EARTH DAY CELEBRATION FINDS A NEW HOME AT FREE CYCLE A FESTIVAL OF COMMUNITY, SUSTAINABILITY, EARTH DAY BRINGS TOGETHER DIVERSE ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS
PHOTO PROVIDED BY MUD Animal Wonders shows and tells about unique creatures at a past MUD Earth Day Celebration in Caras Park. Missoula Urban Demonstration Project MUD’s 11th Earth Day Celebration is from 3 to 7 p.m., Saturday, April 22, at the newly purchased Free Cycles site on 732 S. First St. W. With the theme “Climate and Environmental Literacy,” MUD is bringing together environmentally minded groups, businesses and organizations in a festival to share information, grow community engagement and host a fun and mindful party for the Earth. In the past, this event has been hosted at Caras Park in downtown Missoula, but this year the event has found a fitting new home at the Free Cycles site, purchased by the nonprofit in 2016. Free Cycles’ backyard, where the main festival activities will take place, is an EPA Brownfield remediation site. Bob Giordano, Free Cycles director, will discuss the remediation process as a component of the day’s programming. The MUD Earth Day Celebration is a site stop on the March for Science’s tour along the Clark Fork River as well as the destination for the Missoula Art Museum’s Art and Arbor Bicycle Ride. A slate of educational, interactive and fun programs for kids and adults are scheduled starting at 3 p.m. The day will feature an Ethnobotany Native Plant Walk with Earth Within Flowers, reclaimed wood frame-building, recycled papermaking and a panel discussion hosted by AERO on local perspectives of climate and environmental literacy. Zoo City Apparel will open their doors to tours and for-donation screen printing. The Free Cycles shop will be open for normal hours, so those biking can give their rides a tune-up. An environmental expo, robust with more than 25 diverse community organizations and businesses will provide further activities and information. MCAT will have virtual reality goggles to zoom around the earth and beyond. The Historical Museum will bring their Memory Booth to capture community stories of Earth Day’s past. Big Sky Breakout will have puzzle games to solve. Folks from the organic Wildwood Brewing will highlight waste stream reduction in their beer making and their choices to use regionally sourced ingredients. Climate Smart Missoula will be creating a float for their People’s Climate March the following Saturday. Other creative and informative displays will also be present and further details on these activities are listed on the MUD Earth Day webpage. The day includes live music from Crow’s Share and Chris Moyles. Local
Quiz Answers from page 3 1. 2. 3.
All answers valid E A
food from eMpanadas, Big Thai Country, Covered Wagon Hot Dogs and the Big Dipper truck. Local beer from event sponsors Wildwood Brewing, Bayern Brewing, Bitterroot Brewery, Big Sky Brewing and New Belgium. In efforts to make this a zero-waste event, compostable and recyclable products are emphasized and Home Resource is coordinating zero-waste stations where these items can be sorted out on-site. Garden City Recycling is managing all recycling from the day’s events and the Missoula Grain and Vegetable Co. will be composting food waste and compostable dishware. Immediately following the Earth Day Celebration, the UM FLAT will host an Earth Day concert from 7 to 10 p.m., also at Free Cycles. More information is available at mudproject.org/earthday2017 or by contacting info@mudproject.org. Founded in 1981, the Missoula Urban Demonstration Project (MUD) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that promotes urban sustainability through resource sharing, hands-on learning, and community engagement. Find out more at mudproject.org.
4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
D D B B&D E
9. 10. 11. 12.
A A A D or E preferred
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6 Earth Day
April 22, 2017
Safe and accessible:
Melinda Barnes and Bike Walk Montana advocate for Montana’s biking and walking future
THOM BRIDGE, Independent Record Melinda Barnes, executive director of Bike Walk Montana poses for a photograph on Helena’s Centennial Trail recently. Story By TOM KUGLIN HELENA – The League of American Bicyclists ranks Montana 46th out of 50 in a list of bike-friendly states. Melinda Barnes wants to change that. As the executive director of Bike Walk Montana, an organization she helped co-found in 2012, Barnes is committed to increasing safety for bicycling and walking. That means rallying what has long been community-based groups for statewide changes in laws, education and advocacy. “It’s important to bring a unified voice that can bring a greater influence in our state,� she said. “That helps us pass better laws and bring awareness.� In 2011 Barnes was working with her husband at a Helena bike shop. The White Sulphur Springs native is a lifelong bike rider and was active in the local biking community when she won a scholarship to the National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C. It was at the summit and after learning Montana was one of only seven states without a statewide bicycling and walking
organization, that the idea for Bike Walk Montana was born. The organization sponsors the annual Montana Commuter Challenge in May encouraging workers to bike or walk to their jobs. In addition to hosting a biannual bike summit, Bike Walk also works to pass or oppose legislation at the state level and help communities improve their biking and walking infrastructure and education programs. They partner and work with state agencies as well to implement friendlier policies while offering education and safety classes. Barnes says the best part of her job is when those efforts are successful. “We know we’re making a positive change in the community and know we’re making a difference and seeing the momentum and higher awareness,� she said. In working with the Montana Department of Transportation, Bike Walk helped convince road builders to narrow rumble strips along the shoulder, thus providing bike riders more room to maneuver. The organization also works closely with the Montana Department of Commerce,
DPHHS and Montana State Parks. Montana’s rank at 46 does not phase Barnes’ optimism about achieving some of her organization’s future goals, although the work is not without challenges. “People don’t always understand why advocacy is important, financial support can be difficult at times and there is some resistance to change out there,� she said. “Montana being ranked 46th shows we have a very long way to go.� Barnes points out that Montana’s climate is not a limiting factor when it comes to pedaling or walking to work. Missoula often ranks in the top 10 for percentage of bikers and Boulder, Colorado, also ranks highly. Minnesota as a state is also typically near the top. The League of American Bicyclists provides the “5 E’s� that can offer a blueprint for improvements to Montana’s biking and walking future. Those are engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement and evaluation and planning. “There are some people out there that have a low tolerance for bicycles and that’s part of a misconception for
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things like we don’t pay for roads and don’t follow laws,� she said, “but there are so many benefits to the economy, to health and the environment. “We need to expand education for everyone – drivers, bicyclists, pedestrians – so we can all better understand the rules and enacts better safety laws and policies.� Barnes sees education and getting into schools to teach the rules of the road as critical to improving safety as habits become harder to change into adulthood. “As we get out more with the bike shops, talk to people about the rules, what we’re really doing is setting a culture of safety,� she said. “Our mission is to make bicycling and walking safe and accessible for everyone. This means that all roads need to safely accommodate all modes of travel, and that everyone must fully understand the rules of the road and be aware of and interact safely with others. We have a long way to go but are making good progress.�
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April 22, 2017
Earth Day 7
UM has ‘green’ goals
TOMMY MARTINO, Missoulian “So far it seems that quite a bit of recyclable materials are in the garbage,” ASUM Sustainability Center coordinator Meredith Ruepke said during a sort in 2016. “Indications are still we have a lot to improve upon, we could do a lot better job of recycling.” Story By KEILA SZPALLER Eduard Stan used to be able to venture only a guess, albeit an educated one, about the percent of material the University of Montana sent to be recycled versus to the landfill. This month, he’s armed with a new pallet jack scale, and soon, he’ll know exactly how UM measures up against its goal to divert 25 percent of its waste. “I’m going to weigh the waste every three months, so we’ll have basically quarterly numbers on our waste so we can compute a diversion rate,” said Stan, recycling and waste manager and a SWANA certified professional; SWANA stands for Solid Waste Association of North America. UM has an ethic of being green, and it approaches the goal from different angles. Although construction uses many resources, UM touted the Gilkey Center when it opened a year ago as LEED v4 gold certified, and estimated it would use 24 percent less energy and 34 percent less water than “a conventionally designed building of comparable size.” Recycling is another approach, and UM aims to encourage students who live in the residence halls to do more recycling. Last fall, the Associated Students of the University of Montana Sustainability Center and UM Sustainability Office conducted a waste audit at Jesse Hall, and the evidence showed the students hadn’t really moved the dial since 2014, according to ASUM sustainability coordinator
Meredith Repke. “The takeaway: We have more work to do,” Repke said in an email. In the audit, UM sorted through 500 pounds of garbage, she said. Nearly 25 percent was material that could have been recycled, and 40 percent was potentially compostable. However, Halloween threw the count off. “While it seems high that 40
percent of the items in the trash were compostable, we think this number was skewed by the audit occurring shortly after a residence hall pumpkin carving event,” Repke said. When the auditors took trashed pumpkins into account, she said, the results looked similar to the 2014 review. Another challenge in Missoula for students coming from other places is
TOMMY MARTINO, Missoulian Jessica White picks through a pile of trash on the Oval in 2016. White and members of the Associated Students of the University of Montana Sustainability Center and UM Sustainability Office sorted close to 500 pounds of waste and recyclables collected from Jesse Hall, UM’s largest dormitory.
Greenshoots Media Trash. Garbage. Rubbish. These are the names we give to items that we have little use or value for. Humans produce a lot of it. And, thanks to modern sanitation, we don’t have to live with it. However, this also makes it easy to ignore exactly how much waste we produce — and in turn, how we are harming our home: Earth. It’s time to talk trash. • The United States generates a little more than 250 million tons of municipal solid waste every year, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. • This averages out to be more that four pounds of trash per day, per person. • More than 89 million tons of this waste is either recycled or composted. This is equivalent to a 34 percent recycling rate. • That might seem like a good start, until you hear that the EPA estimates that at least 75 percent of our waste is recyclable. If this were school, we would be failing. • We could do better, as more than 87 percent of Americans have access to
many are accustomed to recycling glass, but it isn’t recycled in Missoula. Since it’s commonly recycled elsewhere, it sometimes ends up in the recycle bins here anyway. Up until recently, the actual amount of waste UM generates has been an estimate. Stan said it’s costly to pay to have the university’s waste weighed, so UM doesn’t do it very often, especially in the current tight budget. To ensure a true picture of UM’s trash versus recycling, though, the university split the roughly $1,000 cost of a scale for a pallet jack with St. Patrick Hospital. “I’m a miser, even with somebody else’s money,” Stan said. In the past, he said, the amount of recycling was exact, but the amount of trash was an estimate based on approximate volume and a waste calculator from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The new piece of equipment arrived in March, and with it, he said, both numbers will be precise. UM sustainability coordinator Eva Rocke said the scale will go a long ways to helping UM track its efforts. This semester, she said, a group of Environmental Studies students aims to help recycling, too; they are studying student recycling behavior and exploring how to use social marketing to improve it. “Our work on improving our recycling program this semester is really focused on improving diversion rates in the residence halls through a variety of means,” Rocke said in an email.
curbside recycling programs or drop-off centers. • According to dosomething.org — a global movement for positive environmental change — 21.5 million tons of our yearly waste is food waste. If that food were to be composted instead, we would reduce the amount of greenhouse gas at an amount equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road. • Not all of our waste makes it to a landfill. According to National Geographic, there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean. • This is not surprising, if you consider that 85 percent of the world’s plastic is not recycled, according to the Ocean Recovery Alliance. • The largest ocean garbage site in the world is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — located off the coast of California — where plastic pieces outnumber sea life six to one. If you want to learn more, visit: www.saveonenergy.com/land-of-waste. The report breaks down waste production and landfill data by state, as well as the evolution of landfills in the United States over the past century.
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