Racking up give-back hours this summer, I’m working on the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle realm. I started a compost bucket a few weeks ago at work. It was something I thought about for months, but I wasn’t sure how well-received it would be. Some people think, “Oh gross!” when compost is around, but I thought, “What the heck, let’s try it!” All my worries about smell, bugs (fruit flies), and anything else that might turn my colleagues sour have so far been nonexistent. Fingers crossed, we continue to have zero problems. Granted, it’s mostly used for coffee grounds and only minimal food scraps.
Working in Lake Oswego, I thought there wasn’t a compost program, but good news, they recently adopted one! For now, it’s easy to take the reused coffee container (I love repurposing), every Friday, and throw in my compost bin at home.
In just three weeks, we diverted 8lbs of compostable items from the landfill!
(We are a small office.)
My recycling efforts in the office are going along smoothly. We have nearly everyone doing their best to place items in the appropriate bin.
I take materials to the Far West Recycling (formerly known as Far West Fibers) center about once a month. I throw it in with our household pile, so it’s not much extra work, and it’s satisfying to see it diverted from the trash. All the clamshells (before my co-workers knew better) used to go in the recycling – yikes!
I had the pleasure of volunteering at the Oregon Brewers Festival (OBF) as a Master Recycler for the second year in a row. I love volunteering at festies! Doing something good for the community and the planet in a fun environment, and being rewarded with a beer mug and tokens to boot – can’t beat that! (FYI for my fellow festival volunteers – OBF offers double beer tokens when you volunteer on Sunday. You can use them earlier in the week on the honor system, or they are valid to use in future years.)
Special Announcement:
I now have 51.25 hours logged for the Master Recycler program. I’m half a Centurion!
Master Recyclers assist with managing the waste prevention volunteers, ensuring they are educating the public on how and where to place trash, compost and recycled materials. This year the festival wasn’t able to compost the plateware since the ban is now in place, so I didn’t think the rate of landfill diversion would be very high…but Mitzi, waste coordinator for the event, rocked it out in other ways. Way to go, Mitzi and the Waste Prevention Crew!
“Great news, OBF reduced its overall waste by 25% this year! (From 12.28 tons to 9.28 tons.) Our overall diversion rate this year was 52.4% (4.86 tons). I’m bummed that the garbage was so darn heavy…but the good news is that we didn’t have a huge increase in actual garbage, despite the fact that all food service ware was going in there, so we must have done much better on our overall recycling efforts.”
I joined the Recycling Advocates board this spring and had the pleasure to table for the non-profit a couple of weeks ago in the Hazelwood community fair at the soon-to-be-developed Gateway Park. It was one of those 100 degree days resulting in a small turnout, but I did receive the surprise gift of seeing a friend whom I have not seen in years, so it was well worth my time! She works for Friends of Trees (Portland has SO many great non-profits) and our tables created the eco-corner.
Environmental Communications 
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