The Rotary Club of Evergreen hosted its 10th annual Recycle Roundup on Saturday, September 22. This year's event was named for Mereth Meade, a long time Evergreen resident and Rotarian, who was a pioneer in recycling and other environmental causes until she passed in 2013. There are not many environmental programs in the Evergreen community that Mereth has not touched in one way or another. Her legacy lives on.By all measures, this year's event was the biggest and most successful Recycle Day ever. Long lines were the norm throughout the day as nearly 600 vehicles passed through the parking lot at Evergreen Country Day School to drop off everything from old tires to paint, bicycles, electronics and paper to be shredded. Here’s a list of items we collected and recycled, preventing them from going into area landfills:
- 10,772 pounds of TV’s
- 1,770 pounds of Monitors
- 6,000 pounds of miscellaneous items
- 11,280 pounds of paper shredding (We hit capacity by 11.30 a.m.)
- 4 tons of various metals
- 20,000 pounds of paint
- 3 wheelchairs, 12 pairs of crutches and 4 walkers – for the Crutches4Africa charity
- 1,000 pounds of textiles/clothes
- 15 ½ cubic yards of white block foam
- 3 totes of shoes
- 1 cubic yard of durable plastics
- 63 bicycles which went to Denver’s ‘Bikes Together’ organization
- 360 tires recycled by Big O Tires
- 56 mattresses (providing 16 hours of work for men in recovery) by Spring Back Colorado
- A 40-yard hauler was completely filled with small household items
And…
- Plant Something Colorado (plant somethingCO.org) handed out 100’s of seed packages that are native to Colorado.
- DisposeRX (Dr. Ted Ning) handed out 260 drug-disposal packets
- Handed out 200 rolls of earth rated bio-degradable dog poop bags provided by Dogma Pet Supplies
Of the ten years Evergreen Rotary Club has been organizing ‘Recycle Day’ this was by far our biggest – Mereth Meade would have been proud!