CVSan Holds Third Annual Zero Waste Week for the Community

To help Castro Valley Sanitary District (CVSan) residents learn more about how to select their path to Zero Waste, CVSan presented the third annual Zero Waste Week to the Castro Valley community from Monday, February 5th to Saturday, February 10th.

To kick off Zero Waste Week, CVSan hosted a Composting and Edible Gardening Workshop by Lori Caldwell and StopWaste. The workshop was attended by 10 members of the community, one of whom walked away with a free compost stacker system. On Tuesday, CVSan hosted its first ever community tree fruit gleaning to great success! A total of 13 members of the community gleaned over 820 pounds of oranges, grapefruit, and lemons for the CV Food Pantry at Faith Lutheran.

Thursday had the most well-attended event of the week with the (Science- Technology-Engineering-Arts-Math) STEAM Recycled Art and Toys workshop where over 100 students and their family members joined the fun hands-on event at the Castro Valley Library. With materials such as cardboard, bottle caps, fruit netting, polystyrene, and cell phone cases, students crafted some amazing creations. On Friday, 17 participants got another hands-on experience making their own personal care items. Zero Waste Lifestyle Blogger Kathryn Kellogg of GoingZeroWaste.com led the event where attendees got to make and take home their very own all-natural lip balm, tooth powder, cleaning spray, and deodorant!

To cap the week off, CVSan once again hosted a Fixit Clinic and Swap O-Rama-Rama at the Castro Valley Library. There were 11 volunteer coaches on-hand at the Fixit Clinic to help over 20 participants learn how to fix their broken items, including things like boomboxes, a vacuum, an umbrella, a printer, and a couple lamps. More than 66 percent of the items were repaired, and approximately 102 lbs. of potential waste was diverted from the landfill. A special thank you to the Coaches: Bill, Cecelia, Chris, James, Lindsay, Mike, Robert, Sandra, both Steve’s, and Tanya for donating their time!

For more information on CVSan’s Zero Waste Week, visit www.cvsan.org/ZeroWaste or for personal tips, please visit: www.selectmypath.org.