Portland metropolitan area residents love events.
Alexis Gabriel (Class 58) leads a green team for Sunday Parkways.
Tens of thousands attend massive weeklong events like the County Fairs and Rose Festival. Sporting events and conventions take place daily. There are home-buyers’ fairs, jobs fairs, and Fix-It Fairs. Farmer’s Markets sprout up everywhere a weekly basis. Businesses, neighborhoods, apartment complexes, churches, and families throw annual picnics, ice cream socials, weddings, and coming-of-age celebrations.
Big or small, getting together can generate waste. But gatherings are also celebrations of our community. So it makes sense that we pause to ensure they demonstrate our shared values for each other and the planet.
Master Recyclers help events get their green on in many ways: training and supervising volunteers, going cart to cart to talk with food vendors and even ordering signage and containers so people know how to do their part.
Chatten makes recovery stylish at the Italian Festival
Want to join an effort already taking place?
- Sunday Parkways recycling. Join the green team. Train and supervise volunteers.
- Explorando el Slough June 24 invites a Master Recycler to enhance their recycling plan with an interactive information booth on recycling. (Spanish helpful). (NE Portland)
- Look in June and July calendars soon for announcements about Beer Festivals.
- Division Street Fair July 22 Join Bill Crawford (Class 64) in planning and implementing event recovery.
- Festa Italiana Aug 24-26 Help Chatten Hayes (Class 44) in this huge three-day compost/recycling effort.
Find resources in your neck of the woods to help you make your own sustainability plans.
Start with the new and improved Master Recycler Handbook chapter on events.
Some jurisdictions have programs to help with material recovery at events, but not everywhere. If your community is not listed below, start with the Recycle at Work (www.recycleatwork.org) specialist in your area to get help with ideas for signs and containers.
Clackamas County: recycling assistance, clearstream containers and signage for bottle and can recycling. Contact: Rita Hale 503-557-6363, wasteinfo@clackamas.us
City of Gresham: clearstream containers and signage. Contact: Cherie Ludwig, 503.618.2518 cherie.ludwig@greshamoregon.gov
City of Portland: Check out the new online signmaker! technical assistance, check lists, containers and signage. Contact: 503-725-5147, www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/events
Don't forget you can make money with the 10 Cent return on bottles and cans! check out the Bottle Drop program to understand the easiest way to redeem your bottles.
Francisco Gadea (Class 50) models fashionable recycling signs.