CHRISSY OHLINGER / Special to the PVT Joslyn Martinez does her part to help clean up Pahrump's little corner of the world for Earth Day. RELATED STORY Dos and don'ts Advertisement

Earth Day has been a national event since 1970. Former U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson planned the first national event as an environmental teach-in.

Pahrump will celebrate it's sixth annual Earth Day festival tomorrow at Honeysuckle Park. Among issues like Yucca Mountain planning, tree planting, composting and of course, recycling is an integral element of any Earth Day festival.

The town may have been slow to catch up with the rest of the world in environmental issues, but it is apparently ahead of the game in comparison to other rural Nevada towns.

Rural areas have different environmental challenges to face, and Pahrump is one of the only rural towns that has a recycling program. It exists and succeeds by the initiative of local residents, much like the original Earth Day.

"A lot of people were asking about it, so we felt it was important to start providing this type of service," said John Shea from Pahrump Valley Disposal in February 2007, when the recycling program was first beginning.

Since then, excitement on the part of Pahrump residents has made the recycling effort a success. In addition to the landfill separation area, recycling is now available in the Wal-Mart parking lot, growing from one large dumpster to the two that are available for residents to drop off their recyclables. Both fill very quickly.

Joslyn Martinez drives her recyclables across town to deposit in the green container. She goes out of her way "just to save the Earth, to be able to use the stuff that we throw away. I noticed the trash has gone down like half. I think that's kind of nice too."

Traffic at the dumpsters was steady April 12, with some four cars all dropping off within a half-hour. Sandy Valley resident Barry Moore was in town not to recycle trash, but to recycle air. He was buying trees to plant at his home. "These are Mondel pines," he said. "They get rid of more carbon dioxide and give off more oxygen than other trees."

But probably the most excited members are the youngest.

At Mount Charleston Elementary School every classroom has a tub to recycle paper which is dumped into a designated dumpster.

Assistant Principal Laura Weir said, "Kids get really excited about recycling. The first time that we emptied the classroom bins into the large bin, Miss Cherie Burgess sent two Cougar Club members to collect them, but they were too heavy. They had so much fun doing it."

The kids also have a can recycling trailer out in their parking lot where parents or members of the community are invited to drop off aluminum cans.

"Every school has a recycling program," said Principal Tim Wombaker. The proceeds from aluminum sales go to a general fundraising account to help pay for field trips and books.

Many recycling projects take more than one person -- they take the whole community to be successful. Manse Elementary School collects printer ink cartridges to sell for recycle. Nevada Federal Credit Union saves and recycles its cartridges from the entire state at Manse.

Wal-Mart took the commercial recycling prize. Behind its stores, it not only saves recyclable material, but has so much that it is baled on location and shipped out.

Manager Mary Twitty noted that "Wal-mart is getting really big on recycling."

The company recycles all bottles, cans, plastic bags, boxes and shredded paper. All is put together with boxes on the two ends and then into a compactor that squeezes them into "sandwiches" where the boxes are the bread and the miscellaneous materials the meat.

It also re-uses its own printed boxes and regularly gives away moving boxes to local residents.

While recycling may be getting popular, sometimes it can be confusing and answers are not readily available. "It's tough getting everybody to buy into it, the education of what you can recycle," said Shea.