ROYAL OAK, Mich. – April is Earth Month and the Detroit Zoo is celebrating with their annual Greenfest.
Festivities were Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The annual festival focus on different ways to recycle, repurpose, and reuse materials through vendors, educational activities, live music and food trucks.
“We really wanted to embrace green practices, sustainable living and really just try to encourage people to think about their impacts and what that has on the environment,” said Andy McDowell, manager of sustainability for Detroit Zoological Society.
From 9 a.m. to noon Saturday and Sunday the zoo also had drive up electronics recycling to avoid how much is going to landfills.
“The landfills themselves, a lot of them are nearing their max capacity. A lot of that has to do with the fact that in Michigan we still bring in a lot of trash from Canada that Canada pays us for, our own communities are sending a lot of trash there,” McDowell said.
More than 71 million tons of trash were put in Michigan’s landfills according to a recent report from the Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy.
In early March, Canton Township asked people to watch what they empty into the trash because its landfill is more than three-quarters full.
“What we’re really trying to do is keep all valuable materials out of the landfill, there’s no reason to send it there,” said McDowell.
Last year the zoo diverted about 32, 000 pounds from landfills. Their goal for this weekend is 40,000 pounds.
“Future success for us is that those programs are super available so we don’t have to have an event here people can just take their electronics right back to the manufacturer,” McDowell said.
More on Detroit Zoo’s green efforts here.