Ryan Tuss is the Green Team supervisor at The Gorge Amphitheatre near George in Grant County.

How do you set up a program to keep the cans, bottles and cardboard used by 25,000 concert-goers from ending up in the trash? According to Ryan Tuss, as quickly as possible.

Tuss is the Green Team supervisor and recycling coordinator at The Gorge Amphitheatre near George in Grant County. When he was hired to the seasonal position in 2008, he was asked to develop a green program – the sooner the better.

His primary focus then and now is keeping recyclables out of the trash and into 180-plus receptacles placed strategically near garbage cans around the 215-acre complex. Plastic, aluminum and cardboard gathered up this way are then sorted, thrown into larger bins, compacted and carted away to the Waste Management recycling center in Woodinville.

Tuss estimates 45 cubic yards, or 12 football fields covered with recyclables, are produced at each event.

The Gorge recycles over 50 percent of the waste produced by its patrons.

Tuss, 29, is an artist and teacher who took the coordinator’s job to supplement his income. He was singled out from a group of potential employees at a job orientation. “I had done it (recycled) at home and was a green head (translation: sustainable living enthusiast) in college so I did know something about it,” he said.

What he didn’t know he’s learned through research and experience. Concert-goers at Sasquatch, the three-day festival held over Memorial Day weekend, filled all the recycle bins on the second day. “We underestimated the resources needed” for the crowd, he said. Tuss said he’s learned to be better prepared by asking more questions of venue managers and the environmental coordinators who work for the bands that draw the huge crowds.

There’s an obvious perk to Tuss’ position: good music from top-name bands in a breathtaking setting overlooking the Columbia River. The downside: On concert days he works shifts as long as 14 hours.

One part of Tuss’ job is to make sure each band’s green requirements are met. Phish, for example, which appeared at the Gorge Aug. 7 and 8, included a four-page environmental rider in its contract requesting organic foods from local farms, reusable china plates and biodegradable coffee cups. Drinking water had to come from a local spring water vendor. The band asked for room for its buses and trucks to receive biodiesel deliveries. And six large recycling containers for glass, plastic, aluminum, paper and cardboard were to be set up backstage.

Other requirements: replace traditional light bulbs with compact fluorescents, institute a no-idling policy for venue vehicles, and use eco-friendly cleaning and restroom products.

Most bands have environmental guidelines and some even bring their own green coordinators, Tuss said. “I actually got to sit through most of the Coldplay concert (July 11),” Tuss said, because the band brought  its own environmental managers.

The Dave Matthews Band, which will be at the Gorge over the Labor Day weekend, has long been a proponent of recycling, Tuss said. Singer/songwriter Jack Johnson kicked the green movement into high gear at the Gorge last year, he said.

Tuss and his motivated crew of six, who are students from Moses Lake and Quincy high schools and Central Washington University, do their best to meet bands’ demands. And they’ve instituted some green initiatives of their own. For example, hybrid vehicles are given a parking preference closer to the entrance gates. Tuss helped create a Green Zone within the complex for experts to set up demonstrations on green topics such as plug-in hybrid electric cars and sustainable foods. One of his crew members has drawn eco-action figures on plywood cutouts that encourage recycling. Visitors put their faces in a round hole where the figure’s face should be, then have their photos taken. The exhibit is used to draw people into the Green Zone.

“There’s so much more that I’d like to do with this program but it’s part-time, there just isn’t enough time,” Tuss said.

What he’s helped achieve is significant, though: The Gorge recycles over 50 percent of the waste produced by its patrons.

Tuss is an active artist and member of the Two Rivers Gallery in Wenatchee, where he lives. With the concert season soon coming to an end, he is looking forward to his new job as the art teacher at Liberty Bell Junior/Senior High School in Winthrop.

Related links:
Official Gorge Web site

Scott Beaton

Scott Beaton has spent most of his adult life sorting, crushing, shoveling, lifting, baling and trucking what used to be called garbage. Now, 21 years after starting a small nonprofit recycling project in Chelan, he’s being inducted May 5 into the Washington State Recycling Association Hall of Fame. 

While this is his first statewide honor, Beaton is well known locally. For seven years he was a weekly guest on KOZI radio, talking trash — or what shouldn’t go in the trash. He’s an original member of the nonprofit Community Services Work Group, which hosts an annual Earth Day Fair and started the North Chelan County Recycling Project.

The recycling center is the oldest and most extensive recycling operation in Chelan County. Located across the highway from the Chelan Wal-Mart, it doesn’t look like much — just a boxy shell of a building holding rows and rows of old wooden apple bins overflowing with old pickle jars and vodka bottles, crushed milk jugs, discarded cereal boxes and school math tests. It doesn’t smell too great either – a mixture of day-old garbage, stale beer and applesauce (possibly owing to the apple bins).

Sorted glass awaits the crusher at the North Chelan County Recycling Project.

“It’s never been an easy job,” Beaton said. “There’s a lot of cleanup. It’s physical work. You get a real workout.”

Beaton runs the center with help from two full-time and two part-time staff. When the recycling project began, Beaton was a volunteer working with others from the Community Services group. A state Department of Ecology grant in 1989 provided the money to build a full-fledged center.  When the grant ran out, the city of Chelan took over.

“The idea behind the program was to get a hunk out of the waste stream,” Beaton said. “And because we got help from the city and county, we’ve been able to do it in a dependable, consistent way.”

The center is open Tuesday through Saturday and accepts newspapers, magazines, glass, aluminum, copper, brass, tin cans, #1 and #2 plastics, milk and juice cartons, some plastic bags and shrink wrap. Drop boxes are available 24 hours a day in Chelan, Manson and Entiat.  Curbside recycling is offered to businesses and schools.

The center accepts wood debris from orchards and construction sites which is chipped, then offered to the public for free. And it’s an E-Cycle Washington site, accepting computers, laptops, monitors and TVs.

The center processed 1,170 tons of recyclables in 2008. Beaton expects volume to dip by about 15 percent this year as consumers buy less—and throw away less.  Industry demand for recyclables – plastics that are made into new carpets, metals that go into new cars and cans – is down. “Prices have dropped 60 to 70 percent,” Beaton said, adding that he’s bracing for a “rough year.”

State and county grants continue to fund the program, and the city remains the sponsoring agency. Revenues from the sale of recyclables pay for about 70 percent of operational costs.

The recycling center and the Community Services Work Group bring information about recycling and conservation to the schools, sponsor an annual litter cleanup and metals drive, and host the Earth Day Fair which this year is on Saturday, April 18, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Riverwalk Park.

“I always felt like it had my name on it,” Beaton says of his commitment to reduce-reuse-recycle in Chelan. “I wanted to try to do the best job possible.”

Recycling questions? Call Scott Beaton at (509) 682-4663. Want to help at the Earth Day Fair? (509) 682-5756. Lend a hand with litter cleanup? (509) 682-5320

Replacing your old refrigerator with a new, energy-efficient model can save money on electric bills. But what to do with the old fridge?

Most appliance stores will take away your old refrigerator for free when they deliver a new one purchased from their store. Some also will “decommission” old refrigerators for customers, but for a fee. John Schons, appliance technician at Sav-Mart in Wenatchee, said the refrigerant and compressor oil are removed by technicians and recycled, and the refrigerator is hauled away to a scrap metal dealer.

For $20, Vic’s Fix-it Shop in East Wenatchee will pick up your old refrigerator, refurbish it, and re-sell it. Shop co-owner Jessie Blair says they won’t take refrigerators that are yellow, green or have rounded corners – the telltale signs of advanced age. Those are destined for the scrap heap or the dump, er, transfer station (see below).

Chelan County’s Dryden Transfer Station accepts refrigerators and other appliances. For an appliance that contains or once contained Freon the charge is $17. The transfer station is located one mile east of the Big Y (Highway 2 and 97) intersection. The turnoff can only be accessed by traffic heading east.

The Department of Energy’s ENERGY STAR Recycle My Old Fridge Campaign sponsors a contest for the best cool works of art made from old refrigerators. Click here to see photos from the art exhibition held in August in Washington, D.C.

By the way: Modern refrigerators usually use a refrigerant called HFC-134a which, unlike Freon, has no ozone-layer depleting properties.

Tip: You can calculate how much you’d save in energy costs if you replaced your refrigerator here. When the calculator asks what you pay for electricity, type in 0.029 (a bargain-basement 2.9 cents per kilowatt hour).