Recycling On the Go began in 2006 when earthday365 was awarded grant funding to pilot a program focused on reducing and recycling waste produced at special events. Since the official launch of Recycling On the Go in 2007, over 600 tons of materials have been diverted from area landfills (primarily recycling, but this figure includes food waste and spent cooking oil). Recycling On the Go has enhanced the waste management of over 900 events (over 1,500 event days). Many of these events occur annually, and so ROG has become an established part of organizers’ planning and patrons’ experience. Our recycling services impact over 500,000 people annually in the community. Through these efforts, people have come to expect access to recycling containers when they attend an event.

Recycling On the Go is more than just an event greening program. In 2020, we shifted our focus to coordinate with local community partners to activate our volunteer network in service to achieving their environmental justice goals with Environmental Justice Days of Action. Since October 2020, we’ve provided litter cleanup support on streets and alleys and in parks from O’Fallon City Park to Dutchtown to Deer Creek in Webster Groves, and all over North County. Partial funding is provided by the Employees Community Fund of Boeing.

In 2021 and 2022, Recycling On the Go provided a Food Scraps Drop Off service where residents could bring their wasted food scraps to our outreach education booth at the Tower Grove and Ferguson Farmers Markets. Our volunteers at the booth provided education around reducing your personal wasted food as part of our broader regional messaging campaign to Reduce Food Loss and Waste. North America (Canada, U.S. and Mexico) loses 168,000,000 tons of food annually from field to table; that’s $278 billion or enough food to feed 260 million people. this 2021 season. This service supports reducing food going in our landfills where it off-gases methane, a potent greenhouse gas contributing to climate change and has now transitioned to being an earthday365 member perk.

Recycling On the Go has coordinated with event organizers to reduce the negative environmental impacts of waste from festivals by recycling and composting as much material as possible and averages about a 70% reduction in waste to landfills at the events we staff. That material grows our local economy through job creation in the recycling sector and grows our local ecology by protecting our soils with nutrient-rich compost in our landscape and agriculture sectors. Every time we REDUCE our consumption of raw materials, by supporting products made with recycled content, we have very positive environmental impacts on the entire supply change to reduce waste and consumption. We will continue to provide some limited event greening services.

2023 Recycling On the Go Sponsors