Mears Park is a Saint Paul treasure. Co-designed by artist Brad Goldberg and landscape architect Don Ganje in the 1990s and it was honored by the America Society of Landscape Architects in its millennium program as a national landmark for outstanding landscape architecture. In Mears Park, converting plastic garbage bins to collect recycling would be, well…unworthy.

A working group of stakeholders that included the City of Saint Paul, Eureka Recycling, and Public Art Saint Paul came together to create a new and meaningful pilot recycling program for Mears Park.

To truly build a public art and public recycling project that engages the community around Mears Park, the Capital River Council, Eureka Recycling and the artists first met with the Friends of Mears Park who tend the park’s gardens, and even polled those who use the nearby skyways to get a clear sense of what people so love about the park.

One thing was very clear – the Mears Park community values art and creativity! The Park is situated the Lowertown area, home to over 500 artists and studios. Artists Marcus Young and Seitu Jones (both of whom have long histories in Lowertown) were commissioned to creatively re-conceive the recycling bin and the ritual of recycling.

The Art of Recycling
Seitu Jones, a Frogtown-based leader in public art, was responsible for the physical design of the bins. In this artistic team Seitu Jones focused on the sculptural integrity of the bins and was challenged with making sure the recycling containers could withstand the hard Minnesota climate and function within the confines of the existing system used by Saint Paul Parks and Recreation to collect the recycling in the park. The final containers were truly a marriage of form and function.

As the artists grappled with the tension between beauty and utility in their creative process, local engineering and product design firm Brooks Stevens stepped forward to lend their expertise. With an office located a block from Mears Park, and a keen interest in designing for sustainability, Brooks Stevens enthusiasm for the project and engineering skills were a strong catalyst to keep the project moving forward.

Marcus Young, Saint Paul Public Artist in Residence, is a conceptual artist and focused on what the recycling containers communicate to the neighborhood about art and sustainability, and how park-goers are educated by these objects. Marcus created a whimsical ritual around a handful of secret “gifts”. Entitled This is For You, this behavioral work of art is designed to engage people in the thoughtful ritual of recycling, as opposed to the mindless habit of wasting.

Some details will be disclosed when the program is launched, but the secret gifts will move throughout the community for months to come, and everyone can follow their journeys here on the website. Local web design firm Bicycle Theory donated time to design a site that would best support This is for You in a way that is fun and accessible. The gifts were created in collaboration with Young by local artists Justin Olson, Robyn Priestly, and Janna Schneider, with additional help from Elinor Auge and Anna Carlson.

What’s Next?
This project is a continuation of two larger city-wide plans. One being to study and implement public space recycling in parks and other community gathering spaces. Last year, Eureka Recycling and the City of Saint Paul, in partnership with Como Park Zoo & Conservatory, launched permanent recycling at Como Zoo. In addition, recycling at the largest city park pavilions was added last summer. Recycling in Mears Park will now be studied, along with these other pilots, to determine how the City of Saint Paul can effectively expand public space recycling throughout the city.

This project is also another step in the efforts of Public Art Saint Paul to engage artists in shaping our experience of the City. Public art explores and illuminates our civic values and it catalyzes change. People recycle because it’s good for the environment. Our public parks are often green spaces that celebrate the environment that we protect when we recycle, so why can’t public space recycling be functional and inspirational too? The Art of Recycling in Mears Park promotes stewardship of the environment and reminds us not only to recycle, but why to recycle – for the sake of our community and our beautiful natural world!

What we already know is that the success of public space recycling relies in large part on the community that uses it. In fact, the success of any recycling program anywhere truly depends on the commitment of the community and each and every one of us in the community, to be committed to making a different choice than wasting. Waste is not inevitable. We create waste. We can choose not to.