This past weekend, I had the opportunity to help at a fun,
exciting event: Earth Day Food and Wine Festival. This annual event is coordinated by the Central Coast
Vineyard Team and was held at Pomar Junction in Templeton in connection with
Earth Day. Though this type of event
isn’t usually my cup of tea, we were asked to participate on behalf of
Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (ACT). Not only have I never taken much, well let’s not lie now,
any consideration of Earth Day, but I have never put much thought into recycling
and composting, with the exception of having a recycling bin in our
apartment. My participation in
this event certainly took me out of my comfort zone, and not just because it
was close to 90 degrees outside.
As ACT members, we were asked to participate in the event as recycle
monitors; or as our supervisor for the day, Ian, so fittingly called us, the “communicators
of recycling.” Basically, our job
for the 6 hour event was to stand at the recycling stations, which consisted of
a recycle bin and green waste bin, and help the slightly event attendees put
their trash in the right container.
And let me tell you, there was more to it than I was expecting.
We started the day by getting a tour of the event and locating
the nine recycling stations. We then
got the scoop on what things at the event would constitute being recycled and what
could be composted. Though my
fellow “communicators of recycling” were initially having a hard time
remembering what was compostable, we finally figured out that if it was ever
alive, then it could be composted.
We thought we had it all figured out and that our day wouldn’t be too
eventful, until we were told of the Boy Scouts who did this particular job last
year and supposedly did an outstanding job (remember though, they probably got
a badge for this). We were
reminded that those boys did a great job, and specifically, that they weren’t
scared to dig through the trash to the bottom of the bin if a plastic spoon
ended up in the green waste container.
Well, that’s when things got interesting. We quickly realized that this day was going to entail more
than just standing behind the bins and directing people as to which bin to
throw their trash into. This day
was going to entail us physically getting into the bins to remove things such
as a little plastic spoon that if otherwise not removed, would deem an entire
can of compostable products as not compostable. Needless to say, we all experienced our share of sticking
our hands, and many times heads, into the bins to remove a plastic spoon or
cup.
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| Check out ACT President, Jennifer Ray, getting her hands dirty in the compost bin. In an effort to live up to the expectations the Boy Scouts left for us, we were removing a paper towel that indeed, come to find out after the fact, was compostable. Oh well, at least we learned! |
Despite all the time we spent rummaging through the compost
bins and the hot weather (which of course was made worse by the fact that we
had to wear black t-shirts), we actually had a decent time and I can say that I
learned a lot about recycling and composting and have a new found respect for
those involved in such endeavors.
Oh, and how can I forget all the slightly awkward, yet entertaining
moments involving myself and monitoring intoxicated folks as they attempted to
discard their garbage into the correct bins (key word there: intoxicated)? But we’ll leave those stories for
another time…
