Volunteers Guard Trash Cans at Democratic Convention

About 225 volunteers per day will stand by trash cans and recycling bins in and around the Pepsi Center in Denver this week, encouraging convention-goers to separate recyclables from trash when they throw things away, volunteer organizers say.

Convention trash receptacles are grouped in threes: each station has a regular or “landfill” trash can, a bin for biodegradable items like food and paper, and another for plastic. The convention’s “Green Team” of green-shirt-wearing volunteers is standing by the clusters of bins, trying to preempt those who would throw their trash away randomly.

“The idea is that people are less likely to just throw it away if there’s someome there,” one volunteer said.

Though volunteers try to catch people before they use the wrong bins, each volunteer is equipped with latex gloves to reach into the bins and correct such errors. That activity is optional.

As far as convention-goers’ reactions to the initiative, one Green Team member said “people are confused” to see her standing there.