EL DORADO — Keep El Dorado Beautiful introduced an activity guide called Waste in Place that is geared towards children in elementary and middle school. The organization met for the workshop on Monday.
The activity book contains 42 activities on litter prevention, beautification and community greening, recycling and an integrated approach to the management of solid waste. The guide is designed to be an instructional resource for people who care about their community and the environment.
During the meeting, the members discussed when, where and how they would introduce this to the schools. They decided to narrow the activities down to just recycling and litter prevention.
An example of one of the activities in the guide is named Litter Bag Evaluation. During this exercise, each student will take turns reaching into a bag and trying to guess if an item is biodegradable, litter or recyclable by the way it feels.
The organization is hoping that the Boys & Girls Club of El Dorado will be interested in being their first organization to present this activity guide.
Their plan is to present the activities to the student body at an assembly. After telling the students about litter prevention and recycling, they will break them down into smaller groups to work on the projects. “Each one of these (activities) is real simple,” Keep El Dorado Beautiful President Janis Van Hook said. “Once the kids start doing this, they will get excited about it and want to keep doing more activities.”
The organization also discussed the street signs concerning litter and dumping.
“I did make contact with Jack Barker, our judge. He has given me three ideas for signs,” Van Hook said. “He is very excited about it. He thinks it is a great idea.”
Van Hook showed three different examples of signs that Barker picked out. KEB decided that the signs concerning litter should be placed in town and the signs concerning dumping should be placed in specific areas where dumping is an issue.
The signs will be addressed at the next City Council meeting.
KEB’s Litter Index will be Sat. April 29 and they are currently looking for volunteers.
Clean Harbors’ hazardous waste disposal will begin on the third Saturday of each month starting in April through September.
KEB also announced that the city will cut and spray lots around town one time this year. This year they are sending out letters stating that they expect the residence to clean their own lots. “If you are not able to, hire someone to do it,” Van Hook said.
If residents could pick up trash in the lots before the grass gets too high, it would be a big help to the city so they don’t mess up their equipment while mowing them, she said.
KEB also talked about having people with misdemeanors or traffic violations to work off their fines by working for them. “Say you get a speeding ticket and you don’t have the money or you don’t have a job. You can do community service to work it off,” Van Hook said.
The community service would not qualify for someone who is incarcerated or on house arrest, she said.
The next KEB meeting will be determined after they talk to the Boys & Girls Club. If they get approval to present the activity guide to the students, KEB will then set a date for their next meeting.
Kaitlyn Rigdon may be reached by email [email protected].