Park, Officials Seek Funds For Recycling

Yellowstone National Park and various officials from surrounding counties have launched a fund-raising drive to finance a $343,650 regional recycling program.

Park authorities and representatives of 10 counties have formed the Headwaters Cooperative Recycling Project, which seeks to build 87 sites for recycling tin and aluminum cans, discarded newspapers, magazines and office paper. Organizers said they hope to have the program operating by July 1997.

The counties and cities in the coalition have budgeted 20 percent of the program’s start-up costs. Grants and donations will be needed to finance the remainder of the cost, an estimated $217,000, said Ken Luraas, a Jefferson County grant writer.

“People will give you money,” he told members of the coalition Wednesday. “You simply have to ask.”

The U.S. Forest Service has already provided a $50,000 grant to help with the initial costs, said Judie Tilman, a coordinator for a Butte non-profit organization helping the recycling program.