Custom Waste and Recycling Bins at Hayward Shoreline

The mission of the Eden Area Regional Occupational Program (ROP) is to prepare students for careers and further education and to instill valuable workplace skills and ethics through hands-on experience.

For their 2018 grant project, they partnered with Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center to help reduce recurring littering and dumping along the entrance road, negatively affecting the adjacent marsh and tidal slough. Students from the ROP Construction Technology class received an introduction to watershed ecology from Center staff, then spent a day cutting back non-native vegetation along the road. This opened up the area visually, discouraging dumping of trash and debris. To encouraged proper disposal, the students built three waste disposal stations, each consisting of receptacles for garbage, recyclables and compostable materials, housed in an attractive wood cabinet. Salvaged wood was used for the construction as much as possible.

The stations were installed at key locations around Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center and inaugurated in May 2018. To further support litter reduction, a team of volunteers cleaned up litter during a one-day event in August. The project was presented to approx. 250 business and community leaders at Eden Area ROP’s annual Business Partners Breakfast.

More grant funding for projects like this is available! Learn more.