Give them your used floppy disks, your masses of credit card bills, your piles of receipts, yearning to be recycled.
All are welcome at a free shredding event April 21 to kick off Howard County?s Earth Day celebration.
“People keep credit card bills in bags because they are scared of identity theft,” said Laura Miller, Howard?s recycling coordinator.
The county held a shredding event last October, and even without a lot of publicity, roughly 160 cars flooded the event, she said.
This time, if it?s a nice day, a few hundred residents could come out with their bags of paper. Residents are each allowed three bags or boxes of paper documents. They can also bring electronic storage devices, which will be taken off-site to be recycled, Miller said.
The county?s Earth Day celebration also will include environmental exhibits and entertainment.
At West Friendship Park, residents can join in planting trees to help reforest the area. This will be the fifth year for the Earth Day tree-planting event and the third year at this park, said Ann Combs, volunteer coordinator at the county?s Department of Recreation and Parks.
“It?s sort of giving back to Mother Earth,” Combs said.
About 50 to 100 people are expected to come out and plant some 400 trees, she said. Volunteers can also help with tree sheltering, which protects young trees from deer.
The Earth Day festivities kick off the county?s Discover Howard County Government Week, with the theme of protecting our environment. As a part of the week, the county will join the rest of the country for Bring Your Child to Work Day, where the sons and daughters of county employees can get a glimpse of public service.
A look at …
37 years of Earth Day
Twenty million Americans participated in the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. “It was a time when cities were buried under their own smog and polluted rivers caught fire. Now Earth Day is celebrated around the globe,” according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ? which was created by President Richard Nixon the same year.
Key dates in the history of
environmental protection
1971 » Congress restricts use of lead-based paint.
1972 » EPA bans DDT, a cancer-causing pesticide, and requires extensive review of all pesticides.
1972 » Congress passes the Clean Water Act, limiting pollutants flowing into rivers, lakes and streams.
1973 » EPA begins phasing out leaded gasoline.
1974 » Congress passes the Safe Drinking Water Act, allowing EPA to regulate the quality of drinking water.
1975 » Congress sets fuel economy and tail-pipe emission standards for cars, resulting in the introduction of catalytic converters.
1978 » Residents discover that Love Canal, N.Y., is contaminated by leaking buried chemical containers.
1979 » Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident near Harrisburg, Pa., increases awareness and discussion of nuclear power safety.
1983 » Cleanup actions begin to rid the Chesapeake Bay of pollution stemming from sewage treatment plants, urban runoff and farm waste.
1985 » Scientists report that a giant hole in the earth?s ozone layer opens each spring over Antarctica.
1987 » Medical and other waste washes up on shores, closing beaches in New York and New Jersey.
1988 » Congress bans ocean dumping of sewage sludge and industrial waste.
1989 » Exxon Valdez spills 11 million gallons of crude oil in Alaska?s Prince William Sound.
1993 » EPA reports secondhand smoke contaminates indoor air, posing serious health risks to nonsmokers.
1996 » EPA requires that home buyers and renters be informed about lead-based paint hazards.
For more information go online to www.epa.gov/earthday, www.earth
day.gov/govtsites.htm.
Source: EPA
IF YOU GO …
What: Howard?s Earth Day shredding event
When: April 21, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Where: Dorsey Building, 9250 Bendix Road, Columbia
