EVERGREEN, Colo. — Surrounded by trees and the beats of the music, the Evergreen Park & Recreation District (EPRD) Summer Concert Series is a special way to bring the community together while also supporting local businesses.
Maddy Evans, EPRD executive manager, said these summer concerts are one of the biggest events of the year, with 1,500 to 2,000 people in attendance. While this crowd makes for a lively atmosphere, it also comes with quite a bit of waste.
"Our waste levels from these events is massive, so this was kind of targeted as a really good place for us to start," Evans told Denver7. "Our sustainability journey is trying to get the impacts of these events down, the environmental impacts, so that was recommended by our sustainability specialists. We built the plan for it, and it's been a long time coming. We've been working on this since basically last summer, putting all of the details together."
The summer concerts now feature yellow tents, called ECO Hubs, which show concertgoers where to toss their trash. On-site volunteers and EPRD staff help anyone who may be confused about composting and recycling.
"We have been blown away with the volunteer support. I think that's been the biggest challenge in the past with trying to do something like this is it's really hard to get people that want to help and sit here and maybe not do the most glorious of jobs," said Evans. "But this year, I mean, we've had more than enough volunteers, people coming out left and right field like, 'What can we do? How can we help?' So we've got some that have come back for several of the concerts that really enjoyed it."
Among the volunteers was mother and daughter duo, Jeri and Sidney Hazeltine. The two guided people through sorting their waste.
- Sidney Hazeltine shares her experience as an ECO Hub volunteer in the video player below
Each event has around eight to 15 volunteers, ensuring the green efforts go smoothly. There is also signage on the bins helping people know what goes where.
"I think it's fantastic," said Jeri Hazeltine. "The fact that we're composting, we're being able to divert a lot of garbage from the landfill, so it's a really big impact for our community."
Megan Mitchell has lived in Evergreen for almost 30 years and shared how helpful it was to have these booths.
"For everybody to be able to come here and not have to worry about where the waste is going is going to be huge," said Mitchell. "This town really wants to do what's right. They just haven't had the avenues to do it, so Evergreen Park & Rec has allowed that avenue for us."
Evans said their goal is to divert 50 percent of waste from landfills at every summer concert. They hit 55 percent following their summer concert on July 23.
Steve Knight will perform during the last summer concert on August 6 at Evergreen Lake House. Details can be found online.
