Gallatin Valley Beyond Plastics is holding an event for the community on the 16th of July, to strengthen awareness of the plastic pollution crisis, and to help citizens to see through what they call the plastic production recycling ruse. As it stands now, the plastic manufacturers want the public to shoulder the guilt for this crisis. Their mantra is “Keep recycling your plastics” when actually less than 9% of the plastic we do try to recycle actually gets recycled. Instead plastic goes into our landfills waiting 1,000 years and more to decompose, with escapees turning up in  lakes, rivers and oceans, and then into the bellies of marine life – it’s even now found in newborn babies. They ask, Can’t we do better? So, Beyond Plastics is inviting the Gallatin Valley community to begin accumulating and saving all the non-recyclable plastic they carry into their homes, items such as clamshells (those hinged plastic containers for berries and lettuce), any plastic containers no longer usable, soft single-use plastic bags, garment bags, and ALL plastics with numbers other than 1 & 2. They hope on Saturday the 16th ofJuly, between 10 am and 4 pm, folks will bring them to the parking lot of the Bozeman Public Library, where they will have a dumpster for ceremoniously depositing the plastic, which will be added to the already mountains of trash in the finite landfill. This is also an opportunity to speak with members of the Beyond Plastics team and learn more about the unnecessary proliferation of single use plastics, and what the community can do about it.

We spoke with one of the Gallatin Valley Beyond Plastics organizers, Terry Quatraro, about the problems and their efforts on July 7, 2022.