PHOTOS BY KATE DALY and ERICA EXLINE

It’s no wonder the Poop Fairy is pooped these days. After working long hours picking up dog poop on trails in the area several times a week, she’s also collecting and sorting recyclables and compostables at many events this summer.

In her four and a half years on the job at the Environmental Resource Center in Ketchum, Erica Exline figures she and her paid student fellows have picked up more than 61,000 pounds of dog poop either tossed in designated bins or found nearby just off the trails. And they have dispensed nearly 297,000 doggie-doo bags in the same locations.

What’s more, her PUP (Pick Up for the Planet) crew, which includes volunteers, has also collected close to 4,000 pounds of aluminum, 686 pounds of plastic, 3,719 pounds of glass, and 5,660 pounds of compost since 2022 at Ketch’em Alive and Hailey Rocks concerts, as well as such events as the Sun Valley Brewfest, Days of the Old West Rodeo and the Sun Valley Arts and Crafts Festival.

Protecting the environment and helping others sometimes goes hand in hand.

“The aluminum that we collect is going to pay for equipment for the handicapped, play structures in the parks and to fund the new roof over the stage at Hop Porter Park,” said Exline.

Recently, Exline’s crew worked the sorting bins at The Classic YMCA fundraiser until 11 p.m. and surprised everyone when the catered dinner for hundreds of guests ended up generating only two small garbage bags worth of trash.

By picking up dog waste at 16 local trailheads, Exline and company are keeping high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen from getting into the waterways and preventing the spread of harmful bacteria such as E.coli and salmonella and the parasite giardia.

This month Exline says PUP is going to add the dog park in Warm Springs Preserve to its list of waste bins to empty and bag dispensers to restock.  And soon she expects to expand her responsibilities to cleaning the toilets at Adams and Greenhorn Gulch trailheads.

It’ll be easy, she laughs, “since I’m already gloved up and working with poop” at both those places on a regular basis.

The ERC fellows are also helping out at Sawtooth National Recreation Area’s Headquarters and Visitor Center this summer because, she says, they’re needed after federal funding cutbacks.

Further north, the fellows are teaching visitors at campgrounds around Redfish Lake bear awareness, focusing on how to store stuff safely.  Exline points out that some campers don’t know they are in bear country, or that toothpaste and deodorant smells can attract unwanted visitors.

When it comes to recycling, Exline says, “people are so well meaning” but they may be used to places where single-stream recycling is okay and don’t realize that here everything must be sorted.

She goes on to explain recyclable plastics carrying the triangle symbol and the numbers one to five need to be clean, whereas aluminum doesn’t need to be clean.  Plastic cups labeled number six go into the garbage, but plastic number 7/PLA cups can be commercially composted.

Erica drives a very recognizable white Ford Expedition SUV decorated with sheep and a license plate featuring a dog and the letters BAAA. When her Poop Fairy trailer is full, she heads to Ohio Gulch. She dumps poop and trash at the Transfer Station. Plastic goes to the Blaine County Recycle Center to be sold, and compost ends up at Winn’s Composting.

She takes glass to the Recycle Center where they are holding it until Winn or someone comes up with the $200K to buy a grinder so the glass can be composted.

Ever since the Covid pandemic, Erica has noticed more people out enjoying the wilderness. And, with more people, comes more tissues, protein bar wrappers and other trash accidentally being dropped on the ground. Similarly, there are more dogs to sprint out of cars and drop a log when their owners aren’t looking.

“You have to have a Poop Fairy,” she reasons, “because you’re not perfect. But working together, we’re almost perfect.”

She adds, “There are people here who walk dogs who are elderly or infirm, and it’s not safe for them to bend over. To them, I say, ‘I’ve got you!’ ”

Another reason she likes patrolling the trailheads is because “when I go off trail, I’m careful and don’t trample the plants.”

In that case, she says, she prefers we “let a professional take care of it.”