This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, April 12, 2011 - In the downtown office of St. Louis Earth Day, program manager Jeanette Reynolds pulls down a heavy armful of Earth Day posters. They contain bright images of people and animals from Earth Days past -- a graphic reminder of the 22-year history of the festival in St. Louis.
But it's not the only thing the nonprofit does.
While this year's Earth Day festival on Sunday, April 17, will fill the Muny grounds in Forest Park with artists, musicians, food and educational activities, the organization itself is a part of many other area festivals as well.
"They're sort of a green ambassador," says Mike Kociela of Taste of St. Louis.
With its Recycling on the Go program, St. Louis Earth Day works in different ways with many other festivals, including PrideFest, Bark in the Park and the Shakespeare Festival. From 2006 to 2010, St. Louis Earth Day worked with 132 events to divert 110 tons of waste from landfills with the help of recycling and compost stations, according to the organization.
And while those bins now sit piled up in a garage, they'll soon be out for Earth Day and then a calendar full of other events throughout the area, making the saying "Earth Day Every Day" more than just a slogan.
"It's an opportunity to expose recycling to people on a large scale," Reynolds says, "and also the concept of recycling away from home."
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Earth Day itself began in 1970, according to Earth Day Network, with a celebration in Washington, D.C., and around the country that included 20 million people. In 1989, the festival came to St. Louis and the following year, Earth Day was celebrated around the world in 141 countries.
In 1994, the EarthWays Center became a way to teach the concepts of Earth Day, and in 2002, the St. Louis Earth Day organization became a nonprofit. Now, there's a yearly Earth Day Symposium, the festival and perhaps the biggest program for the two-person organization, Recycling on the Go.
Recycling on the Go does waste diversion at community events, from loaning bins to groups for do-it-yourself recycling to corporate event greening. In February, the group held an event-greening workshop, providing participants with resources on topics ranging from improving recycling and composting to alternatives to bottled water.
Funding for St. Louis Earth Day programs and events comes from the St. Louis-Jefferson Solid Waste Management District, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing-St. Louis; the group also receives sponsorships and in-kind support from area businesses. That allows them to subsidize ROG services, which can cost as little as $25 for five recycling bins and 10 bags.
St. Louis Earth Day works with other groups, including consulting and greening the entire event. Sometimes, it's a matter of getting through to board members, Reynolds says, who are used to events being run a certain way. That's especially true, she says, if they're from an older generation.
Getting through to people at the festivals is another thing entirely.
They may notice if an event is clean or dirty, Kociela says, but they probably don't think about the actual amount of trash an event produces.
"It's a mini city," he says of Taste of St. Louis. And that includes water, electricity and trash.
At last year's Taste of St. Louis, Reynolds says, 12 tons of compostables were diverted from landfills.
"Events like that produce upwards of 30 tons of waste."
And the most effective use of the recycling program is when the festival itself lets people know what they're doing and why, she says. That way people attending event get the message, too.
"Everyone who comes to the festival is bringing waste," says Reynolds, "and they're going to leave it there, and the majority of it is recycling."
With 30 to 40 events a year, Recycling on the Go often works with the same vendors, like Brady Toliver, owner of Buck's Good Eats. That provides the group another chance at education.
"I really leaned on them a lot to find reasonably priced, earth-friendly items," Toliver says, including sugar-cane based plates and containers for festivals.
Buck's isn't 100 percent green, he says, more like 50 percent. Going from a penny a plate to 50 cents or a dollar is a big cost. Still, he's learned a lot from St. Louis Earth Day.
"I do look at them as a resource," he says.
Recycling on the Go also has a new pilot program, Reynolds says, working with restaurants in the South Grand and Maplewood business districts with waste diversion. The program's goal will be to cater to the needs of those businesses and increase recycling and composting as much as possible.
That program is in its infancy, but she hopes it will be a springboard for creating a foundation to work with other businesses or simply help individual restaurants create a program of their own.
This Year's Festival
Well, there's recycling, of course.
At this year's Earth Day festival, "Being the Change," a "Recycling Extravaganza" will take place in the parking lot of St. Louis Community College's Forest Park Campus. You can bring computers, clothes, appliances and electronics, among other things. Biodiesel and compressed natural gas shuttles will then take people to the festival.
Musical acts will perform on two stages throughout the day, along with a 5 p.m. performance by Shakespeare Festival St. Louis.
Besides the annual All Species Parade, the Green Strum project will help people create musical instruments out of found objects.
With the day's Earth Day challenge, people who do two of the following -- bring their own bag for their purchases, bring their own water bottles and find alternative transportation to Forest Park -- will get an earth-friendly prize.
There will also be food, music and education in a day set aside to celebrate and protect the planet.
But on the other 364 days of the year, look for St. Louis Earth Day at area festivals and gatherings, whether they're acting as green ambassadors or providing places to compost and recycle.
"It's a dirty job," Reynolds says.
But, luckily, somebody's doing it.