Recycling On the Go – Year in Review 2018
“Just like at home those plastic utensils should be thrown in the trash”
“Just like at home, napkins can’t be recycled”
“Just like at home, paper cups can’t be recycled”
“Just like at home, food soiled paper can’t be recycled”
“Yes! Food can be composted!” – “That spoon is made from corn! We can compost that!”
Rachel Lynch, one of our 5 Site Supervisors, worked over 300 hours in 2018! and still smiling!
Just a few phrases that could be heard at the over 66 festivals staffed by our 30+ Recycling Ambassadors in 2018. They are “feedback specialists”, sharing critical information to help reduce the extreme contamination found in our region’s recycling system and imparting knowledge about recycling responsibly to the over 600,000 festival attendees. This season was a mere 3,381 hours of love for my team as they hauled cardboard and mounds of bottles and cans to the onsite recycling dumpsters or stuck their faces deep into compost totes to clean out contamination. From the city to west and north county, in parks or on streets, Recycling On the Go was there to provide recycling access to the event-going public and kept an average of 69% of all waste at these staffed events from going to the landfill through recycling and composting.
The intrepid Laura on a crusade to Recycle…ALOT at Mardi Gras
Starting in January with the Schalfly Cabin Fever event and ending in November with the Girls on the Run 5K and Fun Run, our program collected and recycled 82 tons of material at the 125 events we serviced. We added 12 new full service events and continue to work with excellent event partners like Pedal the Cause, Sauce Magazine, Missouri Historical Society, African Arts Festival and the Humane Society of Missouri. We even had a little fun driving our van in the Soulard Mardi Gras parade.
Thanks to the great success of the program, we were able to hire a second full-time staff person to manage the DIY equipment loan program (Yes! We have recycling containers for your small events to make recycling easy!). Elizabeth Sabetta is also charged with volunteer development to which she increased the number of volunteers by 15% in her first year! (It really helped her numbers to get about 75 volunteers from St. Louis University to help at the International Institute of St. Louis’ Festival of Nations. And they helped us capture and compost over 6,500 pounds of organics (like food waste, coconuts and corn-made utensils)!
346 Volunteers joined in the ROG fun this season. Up from 295 in 2017.
75 St. Louis University students collected coconuts and other organics that would otherwise have been in the trash
Organics collection is very important to the health of our ecosystem. When we throw food waste into the landfill it off-gases methane, a very potent greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. But when we compost our food waste with the support of Total Organics Recycling to haul it to a St. Louis Composting facility, it has the potential to reverse climate change by sequestering carbon back into our LOCAL soils, reducing water use (pumping water is a huge energy and pollution burden), and reducing chemical use. Composting is truly a local solution to a global problem.
At St. Louis Earth Day, we understand the negative impact of food waste in landfills so we have made the decision to increase the number of events at which we provide organics collection service for composting (from 44/105 events in 2017 to 66 of 125 in 2018). This has enabled our program to more than double the amount of organics collected (from 15 tons to 35 tons in 2018). This approach to event waste management increases the total amount of material kept out of landfills often achieving an over 70% waste to landfill reduction. This strategy is the most costly to employ, due to the high quantity of onsite labor needed, but ROG has determined that it is the most effective waste reduction strategy and it reaps multiple benefits to people and the planet.
Yep! all the food serviceware from Food Truck Friday got composted and where did I put my cell phone?
Taking the Compost Plunge! Who’s Next to take the Plunge with Total Organics Recycling?
We provided low-cost (<$20) services to 20 DIY events. You can help support small events to receive low-cost recycling services with your financial assistance. Please,
ROG Waste Reduction by the numbers
Recycling – 45 tons
Organics Recycling – 35 tons
Cooking Oil and Edible Food Donated – 2 tons
78 events 50% waste reduction
50 events achieved 70% waste reduction
24 events made it into the 90% Club
Full Service Events 90% Club
| Schlafly’s Full Moon Festival – 90% |
| Elsevier Company Picnic – 93% |
| Missouri Botanical Garden’s Best Of Missouri Market – 93% |
| St. Louis Earth Day Festival #29 – 93% |
| World Wide Technology’s Family Fun Picnic and Softball Tournament – 94% |
| World Wide Technology’s Great Place to Work – 94% |
| Girls On the Run 5k & Fun Run – 95% |
| Schlafly’s Art Outside- 95% |
| Missouri Botanical Garden’s Japanese Festival – 96% |
| Girls On the Run 5k – 97% |
| SLACO Conference – 98% |
| Schlafly’s Stout and Oyster Festival – 99% |
| St. Louis Earth Day’s Taste of Green – 99% |
| Schlafly’s Stout and Oyster Festival – VIP NIGHT – 100% |
Do-It-Yourself Events 90% Club
| East-West Gateway Council of Governments’ OneSTL Sustainability Lab Birthday – 100% |
| Brightside STL City Recycles’ Unstash the Trash – 100% |
| Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center’s Conservation Forum – 100% |
| St. Louis Earth Day’s Recycling on the Go End of Season Party – 100% |
| Missouri Coalition for the Environment’s Holiday Open House – 100% |
| The Sustainable Backyard Network’s A Sustainable Shindig – 98% |
| Feldenkrais Movement Academy of St. Louis’ Voice, Breath and Posture Workshop – 97% |
| St. Louis Earth Day’s Recycling Extravaganza – 97% |
| McKinley School PTO’s Theater Cast Meals – 97% |
| St. Louis Earth Day’s Recycling Extravaganza June – 96% |
| Brightside STL City Recycles’ Neighbors Naturescaping Kick-Off Event – 94% |
