City of Tucson Environmental Services (ES) is offering a tour of the Los Reales Landfill and the ReCommunity, Inc. Materials Recovery Facility (MRF). Participants will get a ‘behind the scenes’ view and learn how ES operates the landfill and how recyclables collected in the blue barrel are sorted and marketed.

The first stop will be the ReCommunity recycling facility which opened in July 2012. The new facility has allowed ES to accept an expanded list of materials for recycling due to the state-of-the art equipment used for sorting materials. At the Los Reales Landfill, participants see how ES handles household hazardous waste and hear how construction of the landfill cells protects groundwater. Those on the tour also will see landfill operations and learn how methane gas generated at the landfill is used as a renewable energy source.

Tour participants will meet in the upper level parking lot at 4004 S. Park Avenue on Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 8:30 a.m. The tour will be complete by 12:15 p.m. Those who join the tour should wear long pants, closed-toe shoes, hats and sunscreen. Drinking water will be provided. The tour is not for children younger than age 14.

The tour is available on a first come basis. Show your love by booking your honey and yourself for a tour of the landfill. To reserve a seat, call ES at 791-3175 by Tuesday, February 12, 2013.

Contact:
Cristina Polsgrove
Environmental Services Department
520-837-3715
Cristina.Polsgrove@tucsonaz.gov

I can’t think of a better thing to do on Valentine’s Day except to eat a bunch of chocolate. I’ve toured the Los Reales Landfill (soon maybe Landfull?) and it is an eye-opening tour about what people consider waste.

If you (like me) missed the Loft Theater’s screening of “Bag It” back in February sponsored by the Sierra Club & Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection (click here), you have another chance to see it for free again this Friday at:

Catalina United Methodist Church, fellowship hall
7 p.m.
2700 E. Speedway (NW corner of Treat Ave.)

Join us for a FREE screening of the award winning documentary “Bag It”. If you care about the condition of our beautiful earth, if you are concerned about the health of our children, if you care about the survival of our wildlife now ingesting our throw-away plastic, you want to see this film!

http://catalinamethodist.org/event/bag-it-movie-screening/

The Students for Sustainability sponsored an earlier showing of this movie on Tuesday April 24 at UA Gallagher Theater, which I did see, along with only about 20 students. But the movie is very thought-provoking, and mostly addresses the wastefulness of single-use plastic bags, bottles, dishes, containers, etc.

The documentary movie maker Jeb Berrier also addresses the content of plastic, the danger of plastic to our environment (especially the oceans), and even to our own adult health and the health of our children. One of the students was there dressed up in the costume of 500 plastic bags which is supposedly the amount of bags a person uses in one year.

For Tucson updates go to facebook.com/bagittucson.

Please see this movie and start thinking about the over abundance of plastic in our lives. More grocery stores could start encouraging shoppers to bring their own cloth bags. And please recycle whatever plastic you can. The City of Tucson just announced a new system which will take all rigid plastics in our blue barrels (but sadly not those grocery plastic bags):

http://cms3.tucsonaz.gov/es/customer-services-residential-recycling

Is your life too full of plastic?