Earth Day events in the Coachella Valley

The desert is taking part in celebrating Earth Day this weekend. The city of Indio hosted a sustainability event on Saturday and The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens is encouraging the community to take a pledge.

News Channel 3’s Caitlin Thropay tells us more about these events.

“We’re doing an Earth Day event where we’re collecting several different kinds of material," Sara Toyoda told News Channel 3.

In an effort to promote sustainability, the city of Indio collected different kinds of waste from tires to oil even food.

“We’re also having a compost exchange where people can bring in food waste and then they’ll get a reusable bucket full of compost and we’ll take the food waste back and make sure that gets turned into more compost," Toyoda said.

Toyoda is the environmental programs coordinator for the city of Indio. She told us why events like these are crucial to the environment.

“It’s really important to keep food waste out of the landfill because in the landfill food waste basically creates methane which is a very powerful greenhouse gas and if it goes to compost or some other diversion besides a landfill then you don’t get that and it helps reduce global warming,” she explained.

One of the items she said is important to dispose of correctly are tires.

“Tires are a real problem with illegal dumping and they’re also pretty expensive to take to the transfer station or to dispose of so we take them for free here,” she said.

she said the city plans to host more events like this in the future so keep an eye out here: https://www.indio.org/

Meanwhile, in Palm Desert, for Earth Day you can make a pledge to complete one action to support wildlife conservation through The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens.

Simply go to https://www.livingdesert.org/earth-day/ to join a team dedicated to helping one cause.

We encourage everyone to celebrate Earth Day by taking a hike, planting some flowers or vegetables in your yard!