The Blue Ridge BBQ and Music Festival, held each June at Harmon Field in Tryon, made the decision several years ago to “go green,” and lots of people have gotten on board with that. The festival is run almost entirely by volunteers and, year after year, the most dedicated among them are the recycling volunteers, who stand watch over recycling stations, happily directing festival-goers to put their food scraps in one basket, their plates in another, and their cups and bottles in another. It’s the efforts of these unsung heroes, which result in an average annual savings of 13,000 pounds of waste diverted from landfill to recycling.

Cindy Walker, chair of the recycling committee, said, “By catching our waste and sending it in the right direction, we save natural resources, create jobs and new materials, save precious landfill space, and reduce pollution. It’s environmental leadership and it’s something everyone from our volunteers, to our workers, to our festival guests can feel good about. It’s the volunteers that make it happen,” she said. “They’re indispensable.”