Have you ever attended an outdoor or indoor event in Bowling Green and wondered why recycling bins, which are provided to city residences, aren’t available at special events? Members of BGGreen Partnership for a Sustainable Community have also wondered, and decided to do something about it!

This year, at the Concert in the Park series, held in Fountain Square Park on Wednesdays throughout the month of June, at 12:00 noon, you will be able to recycle plastic bottles and cans. BGGreen has partnered with Drive to a Million, in coordination with the Downtown Redevelopment Authority, to set up an information table and recycling bins at each event. “We are promoting recycling not only to protect the environment” said Cynthia D. Sprouse, BGGreen Treasurer and organizer for the recycling tables, “but also for economic reasons. By keeping valuable resources out of the landfill, we can save the City (and taxpayers) costly fees, and the materials are then available to reuse in creating other materials.”

Good stewardship of resources is important to sustainable development and to empowering future generations. Some facts about aluminum can recycling are :
• 1.5 billion aluminum cans with a recycling value of $23 million are consumed in Kentucky annually
• Recycling one aluminum can saves enough electricity to power a TV for three hours or a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.
• It takes ninety-five percent less energy to recycle aluminum tan to create it from raw materials, and produces ninety-five percent less emissions that impact global warming.

In addition to tips about recycling, there will be information on energy conservation and efficiency, brochures from the BGMU Green Power Switch program, Cumberland chapter of the Sierra Club, ALIVE Center, Downtown Redevelopment Authority, and Keep It Clean Bowling Green programs, giveaways, and a Bicycle Friendly Community petition to sign. Proceeds from the recycling of cans will be divided equally between BGGreen and Drive for a Million.

BGGreen is a campus-community network of citizens working to build a sustainable community
in Bowling Green and the region. It supports the goals of environmental stewardship, economic
prosperity, social and economic justice, and community empowerment. For more information about BGGreen or the Concerts in the Park series information tables, contact Cynthia D. Sprouse at 745-4041.
Drive to a Million is a city and county-wide aluminum can recycling campaign, with the goal to increase recycling efforts in Bowling Green/Warren County by encouraging students, parents, and the general public to recycle beverage containers through the city and county schools, and to raise one million dollars over five years for the schools through recycling. For more information about
the Drive to a Million program, contact Lacey Jackson, Coordinator, at (270) 901-1075 or 535-7362.