By Lia Schmidt
Every Fourth of July, the City of Kettering's massive Independence Day celebration — Go 4th! — takes place at Delco Park. The park, which takes up 69 acres of land, becomes packed shoulder to shoulder with all kinds of people looking forward to food trucks, bounce houses, roaming performers, music and fireworks. In 2024, more than 60,000 people attended!
This summer, I have the opportunity to be a Sustainability Project Coordinator for the City of Kettering as a part of the Hanley Sustainability Institute's undergraduate summer fellowship program. As part of this position, I am able to further waste reduction efforts in the city. An event like Go 4th provides both a great challenge and a great opportunity for improvement. This year, 2025, marked the first time the city offered recycling at this event. Kettering has made significant strides in its commitment to sustainability. Sustainability was a primary focus in the city's recently published strategic plan, and they created the first sustainability manager position earlier this year. A significant focus has been on waste reduction and improving the accessibility of compost and recycling throughout the city. This event was a perfect way to celebrate and expand these efforts.
I started my journey with HSI's summer fellowship program last year, when I was a Zero Waste Fellow on campus. I designed a new system for recycling and zero waste efforts in Marycrest, and I learned so much about project management and waste reduction that I have been able to apply to my experiences in Kettering. This background knowledge of zero waste was especially relevant to helping to establish recycling at the Go 4th event. Because the project I worked on last year had a fixed location and goal (waste reduction), I have been excited to explore different methods of integrating sustainability into so many different parts of the city. As someone who is exploring my future career in sustainability, these fellowships have provided me with the opportunity to learn more about what a career in sustainability entails while applying my knowledge to real, impactful sustainability projects.
My role at Go 4th was to walk around the park and ensure the recycling bins were being utilized. That meant I was doing a lot of quick, visual checks of the recycling bins to see what people were putting in them, reminding attendees that recycling was available, and, yes, picking up any trash that found its way to the ground. We had a team of about six volunteers who were all supporting recycling efforts and observing people's behavior. The main goal this year was to see what people were doing, so we could plan any changes to make the system more effective in the future:
- Which recycling bins are being used more than others?
- Which items are people accidentally putting in recycling that actually belong in the trash?
- Which recyclable items are even being used at the event?
These were all questions we asked and answered. Next year, we would like to establish a more centralized recycling location, in addition to placing recycling bins throughout the park. This centralized location should make it easier for people who were already planning to recycle, as well as easier to advertise to those who had no idea it was an option.
The following morning, a team of volunteers and city employees returned to Delco Park to clean up any trash left behind in the mad rush to leave once the fireworks ended the night before. Although there may have been a lot of trash left behind, volunteers were able to sort everything into trash and recycling, which ensured that any recycling left behind was sent to be recycled.
Go 4th was a very important event to introduce sustainability efforts. Not only is it a huge potential source of improvement due to its extremely high attendance levels, but it is also a significant platform for showcasing how the city of Kettering is making sustainability a real priority. For people who may not be familiar with sustainability, recycling can be a simple way to introduce them to the city's other sustainability initiatives. For people who are already passionate about sustainability, this can affirm that the city they live in is making an effort to support projects that are important to them. This event even has a significant reach outside the city itself; there are more people who attend this event than the number of people who live in Kettering. This allows us to show other cities that this is something we care about, and it's something they can care about as well.
I had so much fun at Go 4th. The atmosphere, food, music and fireworks were all wonderful, but I loved getting to talk to so many people who were also passionate about making the city a better, greener, more sustainable place.
Top photo: Pond at Delco Park in Kettering, Ohio. Outbound
Middle photo: Fourth of July fireworks at Delco Park. Dayton Daily News