For release: July 22, 2013

Contact: Pamela McCurdy, 651-757-2559

Stop treating us like garbage: Aluminum can recycling to be featured at the Eco Experience

St. Paul, Minn. – Every year Minnesotans buy more than 2 billion aluminum cans. These cans are 100 percent recyclable, yet six in every 10 of them are thrown away. That translates to 3.6 million cans that are tossed every day in Minnesota -- cans that could be recycled back into the local economy.

With nearly 12,000 cans, the aluminum recycling exhibit at the Minnesota State Fair’s Eco Experience will make a visual impact that will stick with visitors. It will also demonstrate how easy and important it is for everyone to recycle their aluminum cans and show how recycling creates local jobs.

Also new is a plastic-recycling display in the Reduce Reuse Recycle area of the Eco Experience. This display will help fair-goers understand what can and cannot be recycled in different cities across Minnesota as well as what resin codes mean. And recycling experts will be on hand to answer questions about recycling.

Visitors to the Eco Experience will also be able to learn about composting and the differences between backyard, curbside and community yard waste composting. Different types of compost bins and a composting-with-worms set-up will be on display. Here, too, experts will be on hand to answer questions about composting.

Fair-goers can also get inspired by ReUSE Minnesota’s reused furniture family room. A display created by an interior designer will feature fun, fashionable and affordable reused furnishings, such as cabinets, couches and lights. Other furniture from ReUSE Minnesota will help furnish the Eco-Experience’s entire home energy exhibit. All this will provide visitors with plenty of ideas to use in their own homes.

Broadcast version:

Did you know that every year Minnesotans buy more than two billion aluminum cans?  And did you know that every day we toss 3.6 million of those aluminum cans into the trash?

What a waste! By recycling aluminum cans we can not only conserve precious resources, but also create local jobs.

Learn all about recycling aluminum cans and plastics at the Minnesota State Fair’s Eco Experience.

About the Eco Experience: A partnership between the Minnesota State Fair, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and over 120 organizations and businesses from across the state, the Eco Experience has become the second most popular exhibit at the fair. It is the largest environmental event of its kind, nationally, in the last two decades. Since 2006, more than 2.5 million visitors have attended the 25,000-square-foot exhibit to learn more about clean air and water, saving energy, climate change, recycling, healthy local food, transportation, green building and remodeling, and other ways to lead more eco-friendly lives. The Eco Experience is in the Progress Center building at the corners of Randall and Cosgrove. More information is available at http://www.ecoexperience.org.

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