If you have young children or grandchildren, bring them to National Night Out for a free meal and fun activities on Tuesday, August 6, 4-7pm, at Waterfront Park.

Volunteer opportunity

Zero Waste is helping the city keep NNO a low-landfill event by setting up compost-recycle-landfill discard stations. Can you stop by for an hour on August 6 to volunteer for a station shift? If so, please email Diane with your preferred time, 4-5, 5-6, or 6-7.

Zero Waste coordinated with the Bainbridge Pride Festival last weekend to make sure cans, bottles and cardboard got recycled. We also consulted with vendors beforehand on their compostable dishware so that guests could easily drop everything in a compost toter at one of the three discard stations.

It was gratifying to see so many new faces helping at the 4th of July discard stations. Of the 45 volunteers, 25 were first-timers! If you haven't given the ambassador gig a go yet, National Night Out (reiterating from above) on August 6 is the perfect place to start. Email Diane Landry with which shift (4-5, 5-6 or 6-7) you can take.

Barbara Ochota, the creator of the scrap metal recycling collection at the BI Senior/Community Center, talked with Reed Price for BISCC's tri-weekly Something to Talk about podcast. If you missed the 23-minute broadcast, check it out here.

This initiative has been very successful. Barbara began collecting at Zero Waste's monthly booth at the Farmers' Market in April 2023. That still happens, but available more often is the BISCC bin, open to the public Monday-Friday, 9am-4pm.

The amount collected has steadily increased, from 15 to 20 to now 27 pounds/week. In Barbara's talk, it is very interesting to hear what kinds of small metal objects people have brought from home to recycle. Some of those items are pictured above.

We're curious if this initiative has prompted a behavioral change; i.e., are you now recycling scrap metal whereas before you weren't?

Town & Country (T&C) Market

If you do online shopping with T&C and drive to the store to pick up your order, you can forego the store's paper bags if your order is 30 items or fewer.

The company has not yet developed an official store policy on "bagless" online orders, but you can request in the "notes" section that you would prefer your order be brought to your car unbagged (again, this applies to a max of 30 items). At your car, they will put the items in the bags, boxes or bins that you supply.

After a while, if you are a reliable, repeat guest with small orders (< 30), the store may pack your items in a green reusable plastic basket that you are expected to return on the following visit.

Bainbridge Island



 Community Pharmacy and BI Rite Aid

Do you have a used bottle with your prescription on it that needs a refill? If you take that bottle into the Bainbridge Island Community Pharmacy or the Bainbridge Island Rite Aid, they will put your refill in the same bottle!

If you don't get your medication at either of the above pharmacies, go to the Zero Waste Reuse/Recycle Guide page for prescription bottles to see what you can do with them.

Whenever you are looking for a destination for something not accepted in your curbside bin, be sure to visit the

 "Guide to Reusing and/or Recycing Locally" on our website.