The city of Tempe’s Public Works officials stood out in the rain Saturday morning collecting residents’ recyclable goods in honor of America Recycles Day.

Tempe welcomed residents to participate in its Multi-purpose Recycling Day, Green Day Challenge and engage in a variety of the city’s recycling programs including a “Shred-a-thon”, “E-waste”, the Nike Reuse-a-shoe program and Bag Central Station.

Lucy Morales, education and marketing outreach coordinator for Public Works, said this was an opportunity to promote both the city’s recycling program and environmental awareness.

“[The event is] in honor of America Recycles Day. And to promote environmental stewardship, and the need to divert what goes into a landfill, but also as a way to promote services the city offers, as far as the transportation and collection of trash and recyclables,” Morales said.

Through making this service readily available, the city hopes to increase recycling among residents and make less of a negative impact on the environment, she said.

“We need to divert what is going to the landfill [and] preserve our natural resources. We can do this by educating the public that there is alternatives and increase environmental awareness,” Morales said. “For example, we have the reuse-a-shoe program here, where the public can recycle their old tennis shoes. Hopefully this will bring awareness to the program.”

The Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program collects used tennis shoes and breaks them down and reuses them to create “Nike Grind,” which is used to surface a variety of athletic courts, including basketball and tennis courts.

In addition to this program, the event hosted a “Shred-A-Thon” where residents could bring their confidential documents to be shredded.
“These are services that residents have requested, as far as places to have their papers safely and securely shredded,” Morales said.

Residents could also bring old electronic equipment including cell phones, cameras, computers, DVDs and televisions to be recycled as part of the “E-waste” program.

“Bag Central Station” was set up to collect residents’ used grocery bags for recycling.

“ERIC,” or Educational Recycling Information Center, the city’s newest public works addition, was also present at the event.

Eric is a 38-foot trailer that serves as a mobile recycling education center.

Mascots Eric, the desert tortoise, and his rodent sidekick, Wishbone, guided residents through the vehicle’s interactive features and encouraged residents to reduce, reuse and recycle and repeat the city’s mantra, “Tempe recycles, because once is not enough.”

Morales said Eric provided the city with a unique opportunity to educate students.

“We need to educate the children about environmental literacy from a young age,” Morales said. “We want to incorporate environmental literacy into the curriculum. This way, the field-trip comes to the school.”

Alex Chin, a mathematics junior and intern with the city of Tempe, demonstrated an interactive exhibit in which students gave “Eric” a recyclable product and watched as he carried it through the pre-recycling process to the recycling bin.

Morales said Chin helped to design this recycling project.

Every person produces 4.5 pounds of waste daily and 75 percent of that waste is recyclable and only 25 percent does get recycled, he said.

“I’m thinking, if I don’t want this trash in my backyard, I don’t think Mother Nature would either,” Chin said.

He gave an example of how ASU contributes to the waste.

“At ASU I know everyone drinks a lot of soda but they don’t know that aluminum has an endless life of recycling. It’s really invasive to our natural resources to create new aluminum,” Chin said.

He explained that the process of creating more aluminum releases many toxins that can be both harmful to the environment, animals and humans.

“It’s sad to see all these good materials gone to waste,” Chin said.

Janet McNaughton, a Tempe resident visiting the collection center, said she believed ASU could do more to be environmentally friendly after she attended an event and found few recycling resources.

“They [ASU] need more recycling bins,” McNaughton said. “Their big theme is being sustainable, but I couldn’t find a recycling bin.”

Chin said he hoped the community would become more aware of different recycling resources through exposure to programs like Eric.

“Maybe it’ll inspire people to start recycling. Maybe even a little kid to create something [or] a new way to reuse something,” he said.

Reach the reporter at michelle.parks@asu.edu.