86,000 lbs of recyclables kept out of area landfills!

Rain or shine, day or night, we provided services at 77 events throughout the St. Louis region in 2013! Here Ashley works on shutting down a Waste Station at Food Truck Friday in Tower Grove Park.

Since the beginning of the Recycling On the Go program in 2007, approximately 241 tons of materials have been diverted from area landfills (primarily recycling, but this figure includes organic waste, compostable food service items, edible food and spent cooking oil). ROG has enhanced the waste management of 336 events (656 event days). Many of these events occur annually, and so ROG has become an established part of organizers’ planning and patrons’ experience. Over the past six seasons, the program has exposed over 4.8 million people to recycling when away from home.

Through these efforts, people have come to expect access to recycling containers when they attend events. In 2013 alone, we collected 43 tons of single stream recyclables, 9.8 tons of organics like food waste and compostable service ware, and .2 tons of spent cooking oil — keeping all of it out of area landfills. That’s almost 1,000 cubic yards of waste! In addition to breaking our record for waste diversion, we provided event greening services at more events than ever.

ROG staff Paul, Kevin, Aaron and Bradley take a break at Festival of Nations in Tower Grove Park.

St. Louis Earth Day provided event greening services for 78 events in 2013, providing on-site staff at 45 full-serviced events like the St. Louis Art Museum’s Grand Opening, ALIVE Magazine’s Top Chef and the St. Louis Symphony’s preview concert on Art Hill. Thirty-two fell under the Do-It-Yourself loan program classification, meaning that 32 mostly small, community-organized events accessed our bins to provide recycling services to those attending various functions and fundraisers. In this capacity, our bins were present at a range of diverse events from the St. Nicholas Greek Festival in the Central West End, to a baby shower in South City, to Perennial’s Lost & Found fundraiser event which diverted 100% of their waste.

With 53 tons of materials diverted in 2013, more waste than ever before was kept out of area landfills by the program. The average diversion rate for all ROG events was 66% by both weight and volume. Twenty-three full service ROG events achieved diversion rates of 70% or higher by weight, (which is excellent!). Big events with composting and recycling achieved increases in their diversion rates from 2012 including Food Truck Friday, which occurs every month from May through October, and LouFest which produced 11.2 tons of recyclables alone!

Click here to see a list of where Recycling On the Go was in 2013!

Kids love to recycle! Like this boy at Food Truck Friday, after one visit to our Waste Stations, they’re hooked! …Asking other patrons and checking the ground for more items to bring up!