st. paul

If Sparky can do it, so can you.

Recycle, that is.

The famous sea lion recently helped to show folks how to use the Como Park Zoo's newest additions: recycling containers.

That means no more tossing plastic bottles, cans, milk cartons or juice boxes into the trash when checking out the animals.

The zoo is the first test location of a pilot program that aims to put recycling containers in parks and public areas across St. Paul. The city and Eureka Recycling are teaming up on the project, and if the experiment works for a reasonable cost, they hope to make St. Paul a model for other cities.

The idea to put recycling bins in public areas bubbled up during a community process, the St. Paul Environmental Roundtable, in 2005, said Eureka spokeswoman Dianna Kennedy.

"In St. Paul, people value recycling," she said. "But it needs to be more convenient."

More folks these days are on the go with on-the-go products, such as plastic water bottles, but don't always have a place to recycle them. So Eureka got about $80,000 in state and federal grants to start exploring ways to create a successful public recycling program.

And there are few better places to test it out than at the zoo, which attracts about 1.7 million people each year.

The zoo, which is operated by the city, kicked in $8,000 for 10 containers, said Michelle Furrer, zoo spokeswoman. (And yes, the containers themselves are made of recycled material.)

To prepare, the zoo began researching its garbage about a year ago, Furrer said.

It wasn't the most sophisticated of research: Trash was set aside on certain days. Employees and volunteers then sorted it, looking at what people threw away and what was recyclable.

They found a bunch of juice boxes -- visitors are allowed to bring food and drinks into the zoo.

Furrer said zoo officials don't yet have an idea of how much recyclable stuff will come in. "Summertime is our peak season, so over the next few months we'll learn a lot more from that," she said.

It's more complicated than just setting out containers and hoping people use them, Kennedy said. Eureka and zoo employees will monitor the containers to see what's going in them, how much is being recycled, whether people use them and whether the service creates a cost benefit.

A second test location, Mears Park in Lowertown, will get recycling containers next spring. Public Art St. Paul is helping the city and Eureka with the hope of making the containers artistic in a way that reflects the community, Kennedy said.

It's unknown how much the program would cost, Kennedy said.

Council Member Lee Helgen supports the test program and said he wants to make it a citywide service if the numbers work out. "It's a great opportunity," he said.

Chris Havens • 651-298-1542