Our 26th Fourth of July in Jamestown
For 26 years straight, Green Girl Recycling has had the honor of helping Jamestown celebrate the Fourth of July the Zero Waste way. And here is something we have learned after more than a quarter-century of doing this event: we still learn something new every single year.
Every Fourth of July teaches us better ways to create diversion, improve our systems and make things run more smoothly. Sometimes the best new ideas are not complicated at all.
This year’s biggest composting lesson? (Put the food scraps in a 5-gallon bucket) That was it. Simple, easy and incredibly effective.
We diverted 8 pounds of food scraps for composting at the pancake breakfast. Later in the day, the taco truck and hot dog stands added another 20 pounds of compostable food waste. That is 28 pounds of known food-service compost kept out of the landfill, plus all the food scraps brought to us throughout the day by Fourth of July participants. There was some memorable compost this year. The biggest stars of the compost bucket may have been watermelon rinds and cold sheet pizza! 🍉🍕 (another lesson learned: dog poop yes.. that was also a big 'thing' - new signage for next year in the works!
Starting the Day at the Small Park
For the Zero Waste pancake breakfast, Green Girl Recycling created three waste diversion stations throughout the small park. By the end of breakfast, we had diverted:
385 pounds of single-stream recycling!
Then it was time to pack up, move to the big park and start all over again.
Noon Until Midnight… and Then Some (LOL)
The second half of the Fourth of July celebration started at noon and kept us going until midnight. To be honest.. we park a truck at the big park as a 'base camp' and leave it until Sunday. There are so many people camping over night now.. we come back on Sunday for final clean up before leaving to weigh and track all our diversion efforts.
At the big park, we diverted another:
1,290 pounds of single-stream recycling!
That brings this year’s total to an incredible:
1,675 pounds of single-stream recycling diverted from the landfill, along with the compost we collected throughout the day.
Not bad for a little mountain town with one very big Fourth of July celebration!
And After 26 Years… I Finally Won Something Else!
This year also brought a completely different kind of victory.
I entered the hula-hoop contest and WON! 🏆⭕️ A huge thank you to Madison with Mad About Hoops for adding so much fun to the celebration. Apparently, after 26 years of running around Jamestown making sure bottles, cans, food scraps and trash end up in the right place, I had just enough energy left to keep a hula hoop spinning!
Still Learning. Still Improving. Still Diverting.
Twenty-six years is a long time to do anything.
But I think one of the reasons I love this event so much is that it never feels exactly the same. Every year we find something we can do better. Every year we improve the system. Every year we learn a new trick.
And after 26 straight years, Green Girl Recycling is still incredibly proud to be part of Jamestown’s Fourth of July tradition and to help this amazing mountain community celebrate BEING GREEN - leading with diversion first.
Here’s to year 27! ♻️🇺🇸 GET READY: We are talking about making a real 4th of July FLOAT and being in the parade next year -- send float ideas to Bridget please: bridget@greengirlrecycling.com
It’s inspiring to see how a long-standing Fourth of July tradition can bring together community, celebration, and sustainability. The impressive amount of recycling and composting shows that small changes can have a meaningful impact at large events. I also liked the fun personal touch of the hula-hoop contest. Festive celebrations always leave room for creative fashion too, and the mask yellow suit is a memorable example of a bold look that can add some fun to the occasion.
I really enjoyed reading about Green Girl Recycling’s 26th Fourth of July in Jamestown. It’s impressive how much the community has accomplished through simple but effective zero-waste efforts, especially diverting more than 1,600 pounds of recycling. The hula-hoop contest was a fun touch too! Events like this show how sustainability, community spirit, and creativity can all come together. For anyone looking to add a little movie-inspired fun to a festive celebration, the jim carrey the mask suit would definitely be a memorable choice.
It’s wonderful to see how Green Girl Recycling has supported Jamestown’s Fourth of July celebration for 26 years while keeping sustainability at the center. Diverting 1,675 pounds of single-stream recycling and collecting food scraps for composting shows how small, practical changes can make a real difference. I also enjoyed the fun hula-hoop contest story—it adds a personal touch to an inspiring community tradition. An iceman hoodie would be a comfortable choice for enjoying an outdoor community celebration like this while keeping the look casual.
It is brilliant to see how a simple trick like using 5-gallon buckets for food scraps made such a huge difference at the pancake breakfast. Managing waste for such a massive local event over 26 years must take an incredible amount of coordination, but keeping watermelon rinds and pizza crusts out of landfill is a massive win. I was actually reading a piece on sustainable event design for a Fashion Assignment Help Australia project recently, and it highlighted how small operational tweaks often yield the biggest environmental gains. Congrats on winning the hula-hoop contest as well—keeping that energy up after a full day of managing waste stations until midnight is properly impressive effort!
Loved reading this—such a wholesome and meaningful celebration of community and tradition! It’s great to see events that bring people together while promoting sustainability. I also enjoy how creativity shows up in different ways, even in fashion with standout pieces like The Devil Wears Prada 2 Anne Hathaway Multi-color Long Dress. Style and expression really connect across different spaces. Thanks for sharing such a positive story!