The hope of Green Up Day

May 9, 2021 | By Kris Nine | Community News Service 

The giant 30-yard Green Up dumpster at the Waterbury drop-off is nearly full during the Green Up Day collection. A broken cherub lawn ornament sits on the edge. Photo by Kris Nine

Last Saturday, when I arrived at the Green Up drop-off at the town highway garage in Waterbury, the dumpster was already full of garbage. 

Cans and bottles were separated to be taken to a redemption center. Nearby there was a pile of scrap metal and another pile of tires. Discarded items identifiable in the mix ranged from a nearly flawless bathroom faucet assembly to a plastic reclining cherub garden decoration that had lost its feet.

Volunteers from Green Mountain Performing Arts filled a pickup with bottles and cans to redeem after Green Up Day. Photo by Kris Nine

As cars and trucks pulled in to be emptied, a vehicle with a Vermont vanity plate stating “RECYCLE” pulled in. That was John Malter, the administrator for the Mad River Resource Management Alliance, who surveyed the scene and reminisced about the first Green Up Day 51 years ago. 

Malter said he has participated in Green Up Day since its inception when “Gov. Dean Davis closed the interstate -- which was totally illegal -- and volunteers came out to clean up the interstate.” Malter recalled how he drove a National Guard truck that collected bags full of roadside scraps that day.

On top of being an important clean-up event, Green Up Day has always signaled the beginning of summer. It’s when “people are starting to get outside, starting to think about their gardens, starting to think about the beauty of this state,” Malter explained.

On Saturday it was 60 degrees and sunny. My face was pink after two hours of sorting cans and throwing bags of trash gathered from the surrounding roads into the off-white dumpster. It was also the first time I met my editor, Lisa Scaglotti, and fellow UVM reporting interns Jenny Koppang and Alex De Luise in person.
Compared to 2020, this year’s Green Up felt hopeful. In 2020 Green Up Day was delayed and had a lower turnout, Malter said.

Even though everyone was wearing masks, turnout was much higher and I witnessed excited talk of second vaccinations and neighbors who were seeing each other in person for the first time since March 2020. “We're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And it's not a train coming in the other direction,” Malter said.

This feeling was imminent as the cold weather and COVID-19 are fading, but slower than we might like. 

Writer Kris Nine helps unload a truck full of Green Up bags from another drop-off site into the large dumpster. Community News Service reporters Alex De Luise and Jenny Koppang document the effort. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti

Malter also insisted that Green Up Day, like the virus, should remind us that our society “is not linear.” Green Up Day is so important because it reminds us how actions that seem small on the individual level really matter when people come together. “Every day is Green Up Day,” he continued.

Nearby a discarded bundle of wire fencing headed for recycling suggested how we are all entangled with each other.

Discarded wire fencing landed on the metal recycling pile on Green Up Day in Waterbury. Photo by Kris Nine

Community News Service is a collaboration with the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.