The Greenbelt Zero Waste Circle in partnership with the Department of Public Works, sponsored a demonstration in the picnic table area at this year’s Labor Day Festival. The demonstration station was highlighted with a banner and included receptacles for compost, recycling and landfill trash.
The station was an effort to demonstrate the inclusion of composting along with recycling as an approach to reduce the amount of waste from the festival going to the landfill. Keeping food waste out of the landfill is an important strategy to reduce global warming as well as decreasing waste. Food waste buried in landfills emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.
Zero waste volunteers helped with proper sorting of waste. In addition to the station, which was set up by Public Works staff, recycling bins were paired with landfill bins throughout the festival grounds. A total of 75 pounds of food scraps and other compostable materials were collected at the festival and diverted from the landfill. Besides food scraps, compostable materials collected included foodsoiled paper products, such as paper napkins and paper plates, paper french fries and popcorn containers, pizza boxes and wood skewers.
Jason Martin of Public Works transported the materials to MOM’s Organic Market in College Park, which maintains a collection site behind the store where compostable items can be dropped off. Veteran Compost picks up the materials from MOM’s and hauls them to its commercial composting facility. Veteran Compost is a veteranowned business that processes these materials into high quality organic compost that can be used in gardens, lawns, landscaping and farming.
Zero Waste Circle volunteers also staffed the recycling station at the Outstanding Citizen Reception Friday night in the city council chambers. Dee and Robert Zugby of the Outstanding Citizen Selection Committee, the reception hosts, did an outstanding job of providing recyclable supplies for the event. The Outstanding Citizens for 2019, Lore Rosenthal and Michael Hartman are both members of the Circle.
During the festival weekend, a total of 18 volunteers, including students and members of Zero Waste, contributed more than 60 hours of service to zero waste activities. The students received credit for community service hours for their work.
The Circle is one of the green teams associated with the Greenbelt Advisory Committee on Environmental Sustainability (Green ACES). Zero Waste is a philosophy and strategy to reduce our environmental footprint by minimizing the amount of waste that is landfilled or burned, and to conserve resources by considering all discarded materials as resources to be recovered and reused.
The Greenbelt City Council proclaimed the week of September 2 as Zero Waste Week in Greenbelt at its August 12 meeting. The proclamation encourages “all our residents and city programs to increase their zero waste efforts by engaging in reducing waste, reusing materials, composting food scraps and yard waste and increasing household and city recycling, as these are effective ways to make a positive impact on our environment, preserve our natural resources, protect our health, reduce our landfill needs and costs, and enhance the quality of life for present and future generations.”
Tom Taylor is a member of the Zero Waste Circle.