BILLINGS — A group of local runners spent their Sunday afternoon cleaning up more than just their mile times. The Yellowstone Rim Runners (YRR), a Billings-based running club, took to the trail adjacent to King Avenue West on a community cleanup mission—gathering bags of trash blown in from nearby big box stores.
“A lot of that trash just blows into that lot and there really isn’t anyone to clean it up,” said Dave Coppock, club president.
The Rim Runners, around 300 total members strong, saw about a dozen people lace up to tackle the issue.
“I think it’s important that we try to keep our city cleaned up and make it livable here,” said Coppock.
The source of the trash, volunteers said, is not a mystery. With Home Depot, HomeGoods, PetSmart, and Best Buy (among other stores) just above the trail, the litter stream leads straight back to retail dumpsters.
“Oh boy, this was quite a winter at Best Buy, it looks like,” said Coppock. “They’ve got large dumpsters behind the stores for packing material and a lot of it seems to get shredded up and blows out.”
He added that the group has spoken to the stores about its concerns in years prior.
“They weren’t real interested in doing much, but they have their dumpsters there behind their buildings. If they could keep the material in the dumpsters, it would really save us a lot of trouble here," said Coppock.
