Wishful Recycling Community Mural

Our mural is now located at ECHO’s Hoehl Park on the waterfront in Burlington, VT! Old North End community members of all ages, from preschool students to seniors, helped us create a community mural using “wishful recycling” items to build awareness of the challenges of recycling. Participants from the Champlain Senior Center, Integrated Arts Academy, Sustainability Academy and The Janet S Munt Family Room sorted through (clean) non-recyclable items and created the individual tiles that make up the larger mural.

View from the mural overlooking Lake Champlain and the Adirondack mountains at ECHO’s Hoehl Park on the waterfront in Burlington, VT.

The mural highlights the wishful thinking so many of us do when we’re putting items in the recycling bin. “Maybe this goes here? Oh, they’ll sort it out at the plant.” Such items include black plastic, soy and almond milk cartons or flimsy plastic bags and packing materials. These items do not belong in our recycling bins.

One of the intentions behind the mural is to inspire us to remember that if many individuals do their part to reduce waste and think carefully about what we are putting into recycling, we can have a positive impact on our local waste stream, which in turn can have a meaningful impact on climate change.