Downtown LIVE is a concert at Falls Park on August 21 featuring 90′s rockers Janitor Bob and Big Head Todd & the Monsters, plus ShowBaby and The Nick Rallis Band. Join the Trash Talkers team today and get a free ticket to the whole show!

We’re looking for more volunteers for two shifts at Downtown LIVE: 8p-10:30p and 10:30p-midnight. Talk a little trash, volunteer to help Sioux Falls recycle, and enjoy a rockin concert at Falls Park. All volunteers also get the only official Trash Talker tshirt.

What are the Trash Talkers? Find out here.

Click Here to sign up. Thanks for your help!

Trash Talkers Re-unite!

We’re now recruiting Trash Talker volunteers for Downtown LIVE! This event is set to take place in Falls Park West on Saturday, August 21st from 4-11pm, and we need individuals and groups to help spread the word about recycling.  Shifts will last 2.5 hours and each volunteer receives free entry to the event.  Volunteers must also be over 15 years old and able to lift 15lbs.   Click here to see photos, video and to sign up!

Welcome to the new Trash talkers season! We’ll kick things off at Automania on Friday night Downtown. If you haven’t signed up for a Trash Talker shift yet, don’t worry–we still have room for you Friday night or at any of the other events in our summer lineup. Just click here to see the details and get signed up.

Thanks a ton if you’ve signed up to work at Automania this Friday, June 11th. The Sioux Falls Green Project is very excited to have you on board for this event. Automania this year is a three day event. The Trash Talkers are participating in the Friday evening preview party Downtown, not the portion of the event that is at the Fairgrounds on Saturday and Sunday.

In order to prepare for the 2010 debut of the Trash Talkers team, we ask that you take a few minutes to watch our new orientation video. It’s a brief video (4 minutes) that will give you all the details that you need to be a trash talkin’ volunteer. Please watch this before you attend the event on Friday.

Trash Talkers Orientation 2010 from Sioux Falls Green Project on Vimeo.

How to be a Trash Talker 2010 training video for Sioux Falls Green Project’s Trash Talkers, sponsored by Millennium Recycling, Inc.

If you can’t see the video above, just Click Here to watch it on YouTube.

The Sioux Falls Green Project’s Trash Talkers are back for a second season of recycling and education at Sioux Falls’ favorite festivals. The volunteer team will be showing off a new look and a new primary sponsor, Green Project founding partner Millennium Recycling Inc.

“As we continue to promote and encourage more recycling in the area this partnership makes sense in terms of having a direct conversation with residents about the benefits of recycling and diverting material away from the landfill” said Jake Anderson, owner of Millennium Recycling.

Local advertising agency Fresh Produce designed this new look for the Trash Talkers volunteers this year.

Looking For Volunteers

Learn the Trash Talking lingo with other community members by volunteering to join the Trash Talkers, an earth-friendly opportunity to motivate festival-goers to keep it green by cleaning up trash and inspiring others to recycle. Trash Talker volunteers answer questions and share information about garbage and recycling at major events this summer like Automania and Jazzfest.

The first Trash Talkers event will be Friday, June 11th, when Automania hits the streets of Downtown Sioux Falls. Volunteers are still needed from 8:00pm to 10:30pm. Trash Talkers help our community, our environment and get cool stuff. Interested volunteers can sign up for a shift at trashtalkers.org. Volunteers should be over 15 years old and be able to lift 30 lbs.

Here’s the hot new Trash Talkers tshirt. And the only way to get one is to volunteer for the Trash Talkers team this summer.

Sioux Falls Green Project’s Trash Talkers, sponsored by Millennium Recycling, are a team of volunteers who teach festival goers around the city about recycling and reducing waste. We’re looking for help now at Automania, Hot Summer Nites and JazzFest. To learn more or sign up, visit trashtalkers.org.

The Sioux Falls Green project is currently recruiting volunteers for the summer 2010 Trash Talkers season. We’re so excited to announce Millennium Recycling is the new sponsor of the Trash Talkers team!

Last summer over 40 volunteers helped divert more than four tons of materials from the landfill. The team helps spread the word about how to recycle better and helps clean up our community. The goal is to cut down on overall waste that will end up in the landfill, improve on the amount recycled from the previous year at each event, as well as answer questions about recycling at home or work.

So, take action with your fellow community members and sign up for the Trash Talking crew today!

Volunteer shifts for several events are still available. Shifts last 2.5 hours, and we provide all the gear you’ll need to keep clean and look hip.

Join the team at the following events:

• Automania – Friday, June 11th
• Hot Summer Nights – Wednesday, July 14th
• JazzFest – July 15th-17th

Click here to join the Trash Talkers team today!

Questions? Email Karin or call 605.610.4240

Today Patrick Gale of the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation presented a $5,000 check to Green Project director Joe Bartmann. The grant will be used to boost the Trash Talkers upcoming summer season effort.

The Trash Talkers are a team of volunteers who help keep festivals clean and green, and talk with fans about recycling. Want to be a trash talker this summer or fall? Contact us.

Some people are just great at talking trash. On June 17 we launched a new group in partnership with Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc., Novak Sanitary Service and the City of Sioux Falls. The all-volunteer team call themselves the “Trash Talkers,” and we launched our efforts at Automania 2009, a huge downtown car show and festival.

Our team of nearly thirty volunteers kept downtown clean and green by interacting with event-goers to encourage recycling, while collecting and sorting through the trash created by a record crowd at the downtown car show and festival.

We broke the all-time recycling record for a downtown event–DTSF set a lofty goal of recycling 35% of the trash at Automania this year, and together we shot past that by saving 43% from being hauled to the landfill! That’s an awesome start.

Some little tricks we tried: instead of just labeling the trash containers “trash,” we put a “Landfill” sticker on each to remind people what goes in there will end up in a big hole west of town. We had single-stream recycling containers, so all plastic, glass, metal, cardboard and paper (not dirty with food) could go in one place. It worked, kind of. At a big event like this, people tend not to read very carefully. So, thanks to lots of dirty work and a great gadget invented by Boy Scout Troop 584 from Brandon, we actually sorted through all 2 tons of trash from Automania to be sure we recycled all that we could. Of those 2 tons of trash we collected at Automania, .86 tons were recycled instead of going to the landfill (or 43%). In 2008, .25 of 1.26 tons (20%) were recycled at the same event.

“Through the very visual and active presence of the Trash Talkers,” said Jennifer Schmidtbauer with DTSF, “we hope people in our community become more conscious of recycling not only at our events, but make it a regular practice they carry through in their own homes.”

The Trash Talkers team will hit the streets next at Hot Summer Nites on July 15, then at JazzFest on July 17 and 18. Trash Talkers help our community, our environment and get cool stuff.

To join the Trash Talkers team, visit siouxfallsgreenproject.org/trashtalkers or call 605.610.4240.

*Volunteers should be over 15 years old and be able to lift 30 lbs.