A Legacy of 90,000 Pounds of Trash?
A 150 lb. adult will leave 90,000 pounds of trash for the next generation. Yikes! Leavenworth Recycles (LR) and the Friends of the Northwest Hatcheries (FNWH) have joined together to leave a better legacy. Close to ten thousand students and adults were educated about the benefits of recycling in our community while reducing the waste at this year’s Salmon Festival.
Leavenworth Recycles Booth
Lisi Ott, one of the founding board members of L R, kicked off a 2 year Department of Ecology (DOE) Public Participation Grant project to educate the Leavenworth community and visiting tourists on the benefits of recycling during the 2007 Salmon Festival.
During the Salmon Festival, enough bags of #1 plastic bottles and aluminum cans to fill a small pickup truck were recycled.
While the idea of recycling is not new to many in the community, the underlying reasons of why recycling is important, the knowledge of what can be recycled in our area, where recyclables can be dropped off, and how to prepare them for dropping off is still a mystery.
The DOE grant will be used to educate people about the benefits of recycling in our community, county, and state. LR believes when people in the community learn that their individual actions can make a difference in the quality of the world we live in, their actions will become more meaningful. LR plans to accomplish this education by sponsoring a Trash Trivia Contest on KOHO radio, writing a weekly recycling tip in the Leavenworth Echo, guest speaking locally and being a presence at the Salmon Festival and another yet to be determined Leavenworth festival.
The community itself is not recycling effectively. Though the organizers of the Salmon Festival have incorporated recycling into their festival plans most of the other festivals do not include recycling plans. These factors contribute to the fact that Leavenworth is producing a lot more waste then necessary.
LR believes when people know better they will do better. To that end LR is committed to working with FNWH and the Leavenworth Fish Hatchery Staff to raise awareness of recycling at future Salmon Festivals in the effort to collect recyclable materials and divert waste from landfills.
.: Lisi Ott and Jeff Johnson :.
Did you know?…
Recycling saves energy and reduces green house gases (ghg). There is a 95% energy savings when making aluminum cans out of recycled aluminum cans. The savings from one can could run a TV for three hours.
Last year, Waste Management collected six million tons of recyclable materials. The ghg savings from that material is equal to taking two million cars on the road for a year.