Eighty-three-year-old Ralph\u00a0Deckett\u00a0stood outside the Curt\u00a0Gowdy\u00a0State Park visitor center, broom in hand. Now\u00a0retired\u00a0from the FBI,\u00a0Deckett\u00a0spends much of his time looking after museums and recreation sites like Curt\u00a0Gowdy, where he had been volunteering since the beginning of July.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just try to keep it nice, the best we can around here. It\u2019s amazing how people can trash out a place,\u201d\u00a0Deckett\u00a0said.
\nAnd\u00a0Deckett\u00a0is not alone. Driving around the park, Assistant Superintendent Darrell Richardson told me Curt\u00a0Gowdy\u00a0depends on volunteers like\u00a0Deckett.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur volunteer program is one of the biggest things we have going for us around here,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n
During the summer, Richardson said, Curt\u00a0Gowdy\u2019s\u00a0campsites are full.\u00a0The trails are well trafficked. And for many people, disposables are part of the outdoor experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s primarily paper, you know, people come camping and they\u2019re going to have paper and cardboard,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cAnd then there\u2019s a lot of cans, and I\u2019m sure plastic bottles because everybody\u2019s all into drinking bottled water anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Curt\u00a0Gowdy\u00a0employs only two full-time staff and two part-time staff. About 20 volunteers and a few seasonal workers\u00a0do the rest of the work picking up trash.\u00a0To pay for that help,\u00a0state parks use entrance fees and Wyoming\u2019s general fund.\u00a0According to Curt\u00a0Gowdy\u00a0Superintendent\u00a0Bill Conner, waste disposal takes up about ten percent of the park\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n
Each week, he said, a private company empties twenty dumpsters spread across the park and\u00a0drops the waste in\u00a0Cheyenne\u2019s landfill. Richardson said he is not aware of any entities that could transport recycling from\u00a0Curt\u00a0Gowdy.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody services this area,\u201d\u00a0Richardson\u00a0said. \u201cIt would be something we\u2019d have to collect ourselves and take it to town or take it to the landfill. I don\u2019t even know if the landfill even has recycle boxes or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richardson said, if there was a way to have recycling hauled away, he would put bins around the park.\u00a0But Curt\u00a0Gowdy\u00a0is nearly 30 miles from Cheyenne and it is hard to take advantage of the city\u2019s services.<\/p>\n
You would think recycling would be easy for a park situated inside a town. The location has not helped Kevin Skates, the superintendent of Wyoming\u2019s busiest state park in the middle of\u00a0Thermopolis. \u201cRight now, we are not recycling at all,\u201d Skates said.<\/p>\n
Since the town of\u00a0Thermopolis\u00a0lacks a recycling program, so does Hot Springs State Park.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Grand Teton National Park is trying to deliver\u00a0its\u00a0waste to Teton County\u2019s transfer station themselves. And they\u2019re\u00a0trying to send less of it to the landfill.\u00a0Sustainability Coordinator Margaret Wilson said, for a long time, Grand Teton was like most state parks \u2013 they didn\u2019t have money or staff to devote to recycling. Then they joined the Zero Landfill Initiative \u2013 a pilot project to try and divert most of the waste generated inside national parks. Wilson said part of that is educating tourists.<\/p>\n