The Rotary Sale Green Team

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The Rotary Auction & Rummage Sale is arguably the largest event on Bainbridge Island that fulfills the three tenets of waste reduction: Reuse, reduce, and recycle.

• Items that are sold are reused and thus reduce the need to buy new.
• Items that are unsold are either reused through donations to nonprofit organizations, or recycled to the greatest extent possible.
• Packaging and discards are recycled or composted to the greatest extent possible.

The Green Team was created to support these goals and extend them in several ways to maximize waste reduction. You can read more below and if you'd like to help us, click here to volunteer!

The Green Team: Making a Difference

Our Green Team is a large group of hardworking volunteers dedicated to ensuring that items not sold at the Rotary Auction & Rummage Sale go to good use, rather than to the landfill.  This team works throughout the setup period, sale day, and overnight into the post sale morning after to sort, recycle, and identify for repurposing, all the materials that cannot be sold.

The Green Team has five major divisions. Click the links on the right to get more details about volunteering with each of these teams.

1. Lawn of Opportunity and Medical Supplies Desk - Identify and divert unsold items to nonprofits and recycling endpoints during collection week.
2. Recycling Team - Manage recyclable materials at sorting stations during collection week and sale day.
3. Meal Monitoring Team - Ensure compostables, recyclables, and trash are properly sorted from volunteer and auction meals.
4. Green Team Desk - Operate as command central for all green team activities during collection week.
5. Cardboard and Box Team - Save and break down boxes from donations during collection week.

Harvesting / Post-Sale Diversion

The Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island is committed to re-homing unsold items, and we encourage local non-profit organizations, school  fundraising teams, small businesses, and other local community groups to sign up to harvest any unsold items at the close of the  Auction.

We also receive a limited number of items that can be harvested prior to the Auction. These are called pre-sale items and depending on what type of items you are seeking out, we can arrange for you to get them during our donation week.

Harvester registration is open! If you are a non-profit or local fundraising group and would like to register to ‘harvest’ unsold goods at the end of the sale, please fill out this form, and we will be in touch:
Harvester Registration Form

For more information, contact Karla Mather at harvesting@bainbridgerotaryauction.org.

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These efforts are key to supporting Rotary’s commitment to reduce, reuse, and recycle. We cannot accomplish this work without the incredible engagement of volunteers who serve in all of these areas.

Please join us! Click here to volunteer!