Earth Day 2012--Belmont Style

On Saturday morning, girls from Belmont Daisy Troop 61982 arrived bright and early to pick up their rubber gloves, recycling bags, and marching orders. The scouts, along with their leaders, were taking part in Earth Day 2012 on-land clean-up.  

"We'll be picking up trash and recycling at the creek behind ," explained troop leader Annette Griffin. 

"The girls are working toward their environmental and conserving resources patch, so we've been talking a lot about this," Griffin added.

Griffin, and co-leader Theresa Fuentes brought eight girls from the -based troop. 

"We thought this would be a nice way to give back to the community, while at the same time letting the girls see the impact that trash makes on the environment," said Griffin. 

The Earth Day event was sponsored by the . In addition to on-land clean-up, the city also gave residents an opportunity to recycle electronic waste and shred documents---at no charge. An on-site shredding truck and E-waste recycling truck were at one end of City Hall parking lot while a compost give-away was at the other.

City employees Diane Lynn, Diane VanZant and Terri Cook were on hand to direct volunteers to their clean-up sites and oversee the shredding and recycling.

Diana Ortega of e-Recycling of California said she expected to fill the large truck with e-waste at least once during the day. She explained that e-Recycling is not just a collection service of electronics. "We are an actual recycler," said Ortega.

Ortega said that over 98 percent of the copper, metal, glass and plastic from that assorted electronic junk is recycled into everything from playground equipment to new CRT screens.