The City of Evanston will be hosting a Recycling Fair on Saturday, July 23, 2011 from 9a.m. to noon at the Morton Civic Center Parking Lot, 2100 Ridge Ave. At the fair, residents can recycle a variety of items, secure recycling education materials, sign-up for a waste audits and get a close look at some of the Streets and Sanitation heavy equipment. Residents will have the opportunity to recycle electronics, hangers, plastic bags, sharps, batteries, CFL bulbs, and ink cartridges. The first 250 people to show up will have the opportunity to obtain a repurposed refuse cart that can be used for composting.

Composting allows your household to reduce the amount of food and yard waste that would normally go into a landfill by instead turning these materials into fertilizer. These 95-gallon composting bins will not have wheels, so be sure to bring a vehicle capable of transporting your bin. The City of Evanston and Groot will also have their large equipment staged for kids to view and touch.

Other opportunities at the Recycling Fair include meeting representatives from the City Departments to learn about various initiatives taking place in Evanston as well as signing up for the CUB Energy Saver’s Contest to get your chance to win a free year’s worth of electricity!

Document Destruction

Residents can bring up to five banker’s boxes of paper documents to be shredded on site. Documents will be fed directly into the onsite truck for immediate cross-shredding. The contractor will transport the shredded paper back to its facility to bale and market for recycling.
Document destruction tips:
• Remove large metal clips and binders.
• Put paper documents in a bag or box.
• Staples and paper clips are acceptable and are sorted out later in the process.
• No businesses will be allowed to participate in the shredding.

Electronic Recycling

Residents may also bring computers and electronics to the fair for recycling. The following materials will be accepted at the event:
• Cell Phones
• Computer Monitors
• Computers – PCs and laptops
• DVD Players
• Fax Machines
• MP3 Players
• PDAs
• Peripherals (mice, keyboards)
• Printers
• Scanners
• Televisions
• VHS Players
• Video Game Consoles

Paper Product Collection for Art Project at Evanston Art Center

As part of the Fair, the City of Evanston will be collecting recycled paper products to support an upcoming art project at the Evanston Art Center.

The Evanston Art Center will be building a structure entirely out of recycled paper goods and invites all residents to help donate their paper goods. Members of the Evanston Art Center will be at the Recycling Fair and will be collecting the following items:

• Phone Books
• Old fliers, brochures and advertisements
• Butcher paper
• Photo backdrop paper
• Catalogs
• Magazines
• Cereal boxes
• Wall Paper samples
• Paint color samples
• Old books and dictionaries