Want to be part of the biggest landfill diversion event on the island? Then come check out the Rotary Auction Green Team this Thursday, May 28, 6-7pm at BARN. Anyone can volunteer!

GT leader Deb Rudnick will give a brief slide show presentation about the Green Team, in action any time between July 5-11, which is the Rotary Auction donation period and sale day. Then you'll have a chance to talk with any of the leaders from each of the GT divisions:

• Lawn of Opportunity (LOO)
• Recycle Team
• Green Desk
• Cardboard and Box Team
• Mealtime Monitors
• Pre and Post-sale Harvesters

We proudly keep at least 5, 40-yard dumpsters worth of donated Rotary material* from going to the landfill, which translates into at least $4000 not spent on trash that can instead go back into the community.

*Includes packaging, meal discards and broken items. Please only donate items in good condition! Here is what Rotary does NOT accept.

Half the fun of an event is getting some good food truck grub. That also means getting disposable plates, cups and napkins. Some event organizers provide compost containers to prevent leftover food and compostable paper products from ending up in a landfill. (Why? When organic materials decompose in the landfill's anaerobic environment, they produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.) But, it always takes volunteer monitors to ensure that no plastic or recyclables contaminate the future compost.

If you can help keep an eye on the sorting stations at either of these events, both taking place at Waterfront Park, please email the contact person indicated:

Asian Arts Festival - Sunday, May 31, 11am-5pm.
Contact: Rob LaRubbio

Bainbridge Pride Festival - Saturday, June 20, 12-8pm. 
Contact: Rina Fa'amoe

On a sad note, Zero Waste will not be taking part in waste management at the July 4th festival this year, so there will be no food and compostable food service ware diversion.

If you would like to help with another aspect of waste diversion at the Grand Old Fourth, the Chamber of Commerce is looking for support with the water refill stations. Please contact them to volunteer.

It's another collaboration between BARN, Sustainable Bainbridge and our fabulous fixer volunteers to keep your treasured appliances, clothing and other items in functional form.

Here's what you can bring:

• clothing & textiles
• small appliances (including lamps and vacuums)
• jewelry
• small electronics
• small welding and woodworking repairs
• minor bike repairs

Please register here so we know what to expect. You may bring up to two items (clean, please!). Bring the owner's manual, if possible, and any relevant repair parts.

For more info, go here.

BI Flashdrive's Kathy McGowan gave a well-received presentation at the annual Washington State Recycling Conference earlier this May. In a session entitled "Local Solutions for Reuse and Recycling: Community Models That Work," she emphasized the research she and her sons did before creating Flashdrive, as well as the community input that is guiding their initiative's evolution.

Here are the donation categories for this summer's pick-ups:



June - Men's suits and ties (Suits for Service Members)
July - Art supplies just for painting and drawing, games for ages 13+ (Compass Housing Alliance)

August - Musical instruments in good shape; no pianos - working keyboards okay (Music Discovery Center)

To get on the Flashdrive email list so you are notified directly when each month's pick-up occurs, please email biflashdrive@gmail.com.

The ReUse Depot and BI Parks Department are teaming up to host a kids' clothing and school supply swap booth at each of the six outdoor summer concerts at Battle Point Park (see dates above).

Items may include new or gently used

• backpacks
• clean notebooks
• pencil cases
• binders
• working markers
• crayons and colored pencils in good shape
• lined paper
• blank paper
• graph paper
• clean children's clothes in good condition
• clean children's shoes in good condition

NO underwear, swimsuits, hats or scarves

Check back in with The ReUse Depot for a SignUpGenius if you'd like to help at the swap table.

The ReUse Depot is thrilled to announce that their grant application has been approved and is officially moving forward in the Bainbridge Community Foundation's annual Community Grants Cycle!

You can help them reach their BCF campaign goal of $14,000 by giving to Sustainable Bainbridge - The Reuse Depot. BCF covers all credit card processing fees, meaning 100% of your donation goes directly to their project. By supporting them in this campaign, which runs through June 12, you will be providing seed money to begin operations.

The ReUse Depot aspires to be a new community-centered hub of reuse-recycle-repair programs offering material exchanges, resource and recycling initiatives, a Library of Things, and ReMaker Studio, all under one roof. They were chosen to participate in Washington state's NextCycle accelerator program that helps mentor businesses and nonprofit projects, such as The ReUse Depot, to advance a circular reuse economy.

Many thanks to Reliable Storage for a complimentary storage unit so that the Depot team has a place to store items as they begin to collect inventory for the Library of Things.

The Washington State Department of Ecology is exploring how a potential beverage recycling refund program (also known as a bottle bill) could improve recycling, reduce litter and make it easier for people across the state to return beverage containers. The Recycling Refund Survey is the next step in the process to gather input.

The survey takes approximately 10-20 minutes. It includes tailored questions for all audiences, so please share with friends, family, colleagues, and other interested parties.

More information can be found here. Your feedback will help inform how to design a program to work effectively for all communities across Washington. The survey ends May 31.

Zero Waste is a proponent of this recycling refund program with a 10-cent deposit. Here are four main reasons why:

1. States with bottle bills have a much higher recycling rate than those without.
2. These states also have less roadside beverage litter.
3. Bottle bill states that have a higher deposit (e.g., 10 cents) generally have a higher rate of return compared to states with a lower deposit (i.e., 5 cents, the initial deposit back in the early 1980s that persists in some states even now).
4. Curbside and transfer station recycling is a mix of glass, plastic, paper and metal. These materials get trucked to a materials recovery facility, or "murf" (MRF), where sometimes flattened cans get accidentally sorted with paper and end up being trashed at the paper mill. Bottle bills provide for a collection point solely for beverage containers, which ensures that they all make it to the appropriate recycling processor.

So what should you do if you have a flattened can (such as found in parking lots)?

Zero Waste and the BI Senior and Community Center run a joint scrap metal recycling project, headed up by ZW education outreach coordinator Barbara Ochota. BISCC hosts the collection bins and ZW and BISCC volunteers sort the small and medium metal items on a bi-weekly basis at the senior center. Anyone is welcome to help sort on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays, 11am-noon.

For more information on the scrap metal recycling program and what you can drop off, go here.

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. If you have an addition for it or see a correction needed, please contact me.

Newsletter editor: Diane Landry, Zero Waste BI (Volunteer) Director

Back issues are available here.

Zero Waste BI is an all-volunteer program of Sustainable Bainbridge.

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