Environmental Outreach Ambassador at City of Penticton in Penticton, BC
In my first work term, I worked as an Environmental Outreach Ambassador for the City of Penticton. Most of my job is promoting and monitoring the recycling program. Sometimes, I’m also working with the water conservation program and climate action of the City to make Penticton more sustainable. My favorite part of the job is interacting with people in the Farmers Market every Saturday. The market is a traditional event in Penticton, and it always attracts many people to visit. I work in a booth of our program to promote recycling policies and skills. We have a city tent with recycling brochures and a spinning wheel. There are some items with different ways to recycle on the wheel-people like spinning the wheel and answering the recycling methods of each item. I also need to be prepared to answer any question related to recycling, such as the method to recycle certain weird items and the waste collection schedule. On average, I need to interact with 120 people every Saturday. During regular work days, I do recycling audits of single-family and multi-family recycling carts. I use an e-bike to commute from house to house to check the recycling bins of each family. Once I find the items not supposed to be in the recycling, I will leave a tag with the guidelines for sorting out recycling on the bin. If there are lots of contaminants, I will collect the wrong items in an audit bag and tape an audit paper with more detailed information. We can also send mails with tailored explanations of the properties that are not improving. The funniest part of the job is talking with different people every day. They are all very supportive and eager to learn more about recycling. I’ve learned how to explain recycling policies to people and how to engage more people to support the program. It is a perfect entry-level job for students to learn about sustainability in the urban environment. I would highly recommend everyone to apply for this job.