MANKATO — Everyone’s heard the phrase before — reduce, reuse and recycle.
But for the last couple years, Mankato Area Zero Waste has been taking it a step further by educating local residents on how they can take those steps at their Zero Waste Day in the Park event.
Mankato Area Zero Waste Chair Jane Dow explains it best.
“The whole idea is to help people understand that we got to stop throwing everything away and having it go to the landfill, and then why that’s bad,” she said.
Dow said she was inspired to start the event through her involvement with a coalition of environmental groups in the Twin Cities.
“I started going to some of their meetings, and they were the ones who said, ‘It would be really neat if you had a Zero Waste event,’” she said. She was able to get funding for the event through them for its first year. Now, it’s funded through the Mankato Clinic Foundation and a city of Mankato community grant.
Now back for its third year from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 19 at the Sibley Park Pavilion, the free event will offer everything from a clothing swap to appliance repairs to help people give new life to items they already own.
“The clothing swap, you don’t even have to buy new clothing,” she said. “Just get something that somebody else wore and then you save the landfill from the tons and tons of clothing that’s a huge pollutant of landfills.”
In addition to the clothing swap, residents can bring their torn wardrobe pieces so “fixers” at the event can mend it.
And, this year, Mankato Makerspace staff will be on-site hosting a fix-it clinic for household appliances.
“They are able to repair all kinds of different small appliances,” Dow said. “Like, if you have a lamp that’s not working or a mixer (where there’s) something dysfunctional, you can bring your small appliance and they’ll fix it for you.”
There will also be several educational booths offering tips such as how to reduce your throw away plastic use and how to keep compostable items out of the trash.
The event is free and will also feature live food and live music.