WHS students bring recycle bins to city parks

Recycling downtown just got a lot easier thanks to a group of Whitefish High School students.

Six students — Kenzie Grover, Emily Clark, Cole Porterfield, Annie Howeth, Sophie Marchetti and Lauren McDonald — worked with the city to install four recycling containers at popular locations. Three containers are at City Beach, with the other on Baker Avenue.

Special Services teacher Christian Bitterauf said some of his students noticed the lack of recycling options downtown and used that idea as part of their personalized projects.

“We wanted to do something to collaborate with the city, and the biggest need was that we needed to provide some recycling for City Beach in particular,” Bitterauf said. “There’s nothing there. There’s really just the one in Depot Park and the big one by the middle school. These kids took the leadership and got the ball rolling.”

The metal containers used for the project were donated by Xanterra Parks & Resorts.

Through the project, students identified recycling needs, designed and painted signs for the containers and worked alongside city officials to bring the whole thing together. The students are also part of FREEFLOW, a student group at the high school focused on sustainability and environmental studies.

Working with the city has been one of the most beneficial and rewarding parts of the project, Bitterauf said, noting how his students weren’t totally prepared for the slower pace of passing initiatives within a government.

“The city’s been really supportive in helping shape the requirements and also showing they value the work and they support it,” he said. “It’s exciting. We just want to grow this relationship, this is how entrepreneurship starts and the kids are seeing this as a real world thing — their ideas have impact.”

Bitterauf said the city will take care of the containers from here on out, but he’s looking at ways to keep expanding these kinds of projects and continue to get students involved in their community.

“I think every year we would like to grow recycling opportunities in Whitefish. We’ve already identified some other strategic areas, where people visiting downtown have a place to put their soda can other than the garbage.”

“I see this as taking that little step out into the community, and we want to just keep building on that every year,” he said. “My vision is that we have a whole student team that is going out into Whitefish and consulting and providing opportunities for sustainability.”

“We feel passionately that the real learning is when they’re out and engaged in the community,” he added.