Recycling Is Second Nature to Award Winners, Museum
Oscar the Grouch would have loved the Discovery Museum of Orange County’s event.
The programs were trash--recycled paper bound with bright pieces of cereal box cardboard and scraps of ribbon. The centerpieces were trash too--movie theater popcorn buckets adorned with foam peanuts and paper cups.
Yes, the trash-can-dwelling Muppet would have been right at home at the Santa Ana museum’s Trash Bash, where four environmental awards were recently presented.
Even the awards were made of recyclables. Reducing, reusing and recycling is the name of the game at the museum, which is home to a nature conservancy, the Eco-Art Gallery (which lets youngsters turn trash into art) and the “Creative Ecology” environmental education program.
The awards went to the Orange County Water District’s Groundwater Guardian Team, Fullerton Arboretum’s Home Composting Program, Spieker Property Management in Orange and Dan Slater, an Orange city councilman.
“We’re pretty proud that we got the award. The fact that we saved 855 trees last year thrills me,” said Robin Mather, project manager at Spieker. The company encourages tenants to recycle by placing paper bins in each office. The City Tower, a 20-story building in Orange, recycled 200,604 tons of paper last year.
The Groundwater Guardians, financed by the water district, includes representatives from business, education and government who work to protect the ground-water basin through such events as the annual Children’s Drinking Water Festival.
The arboretum’s home-composting program conducts workshops on composting to reduce and reuse green waste throughout the county and in Orange, Slater provided seed money for “Orange for Trees,” a group that aims to replant the urban forest at no cost to taxpayers.
To be considered for this column, please send information on the Orange County person being honored along with a photograph to Lynn O’Dell, The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626. (714) 283-5685.
