It gives me great pleasure to report the results of the second annual St. Marys EarthKeepers E-Scrap event, held on Sat. January 14th. This year the Tribune & Georgian also offered paper-shredding services. Citizens brought in 7,211 pounds of paper – which is a marked increase over last year’s amount of 4,259 pounds.
Over 13 tons of electrical equipment was collected for recycling. Along with last year’s 10 tons this means that in two years of holding this one event we have prevented over 23 tons (or 46,000 pounds) of electronic waste material from entering our landfill.
Given the resounding success of this event, the EarthKeepers will be organizing and hosting it every year – with plans to expand our media coverage well beyond Camden County.
Along with the obvious environmental impacts of such endeavors there is the affirmative press that our city receives and the immense sense of satisfaction felt when out community comes together to make a positive difference.
On behalf of the EarthKeepers, I’d like to thank the media outlets and the various county and city governments for helping to publicize this event, the Tribune & Georgian, the EarthKeepers volunteers who once again so generously gave of their time and efforts – and the people of Camden County for stepping up, en masse, to do the right thing.
Last year 386.64 tons of recyclable material was collected in St. Marys through Advanced Disposal’s weekly curbside recycling bin collection. That’s 773,280 pounds of material in one single year that didn’t end up in the landfill site. And that number exceeds 2010’s amount.
Our compliance rate continues to be almost twice that of the national average and awareness grows. Given these results, the interest of the citizens and our natural environment, St. Marys is uniquely positioned to attract new future residents, businesses and tourists. We are proving ourselves to be a united community in many respects – now we just need to creatively and aggressively promote our city while continuing to build upon our strengths.
