Recycling alive and well at 2 Havre sites
By Crystal Thompson
Recycling has become second nature for many consumers and the Havre community is no exception.
Havre's two recycling facilities, Havre Day Activity Center and Pacific Steel and Recycling, take in everything from old phone books to scrap metals to transform for future use.
HDAC's recycling facility has been around for 18 years, according to its manager, Tony Gabrielsen. The recycling center has been at its current location, 235 First St. W., for about eight years, Gabrielsen said. It employs 24 people.
Gabrielsen said HDAC recycles a wide variety of materials, including plastic bottles and jugs, old newspapers, aluminum cans, brass, copper, radiators, batteries, paper, cardboard and more. HDAC pays per pound for metal recyclables and ships out materials to various recycling plants throughout the United States. Money generated from the recycling center goes back into HDAC activities and services.
Havre Day Activity Center provides many services including group homes and supervised living, and rehabilitation services for developmentally disabled people.
Gabrielsen said that the center provides recycling containers for local businesses, as well as a community recycling receptacle at Highland Park Laundromat. He said the amount of materials HDAC takes in for recycling fluctuates with the market, but has generally continued to grow in recent years. In 2000, HDAC shipped out 202,810 pounds of cardboard, 192,180 pounds of newspaper, 35,740 pounds of aluminum and 33,500 pounds of white ledger paper.
At Pacific Steel and Recycling, Doug Earhard is in charge of the recycling facility, located on Highway 2 East in Havre. Pacific accepts large items like household appliances and cast iron materials as well as aluminum, cardboard, paper, scrap iron and more. The materials are then shipped to Pacific's Great Falls branch.
Earhard said the recycling facility's intake depends a lot on the weather, as well as the economic times. How much Pacific pays for certain recyclables depends on the material's market value. Earhard said the summer months often mean a higher volume of materials to recycle.
Pacific has been around since the early 1900s. Recycling of iron, copper and brass was a large part of the business even then, said Earhard.
