Earth Day: San Jose residents share how, why they recycle in fight against climate change

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- The City of San Jose held an Earth Day Celebration Friday morning outside City Hall with a recycling theme. Where city leaders encouraged residents to pledge to recycle and to share how and why they recycle.

"One thing I learned is to not to recycle plastic bags, which I thought was good. It turned out to be not right. So one thing I learned that I would share today with you," said Tam Nguyen of Vivo Foundation.

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"For example, either after I eat yogurt in the morning or I'm cooking and I use a salsa container, what I do before throwing it in, in my recycling bin, is I like to scrape and empty any of the food that's left over in order to prevent contaminating the rest of my recycling bin. So that's something that I do at home and it makes me happy, that something so small can make a difference to our environment. And I invite you all to do this at home," shared Marlene Gallegos of Valley Verde.

Mayor Sam Liccardo shared other ways the city is making a difference in the fight against climate change.

"We are, among major cities, the city with collectively the highest share of our energy coming from renewables and carbon free sources. 95% of our electricity is coming from non- carbon sources," Mayor Liccardo said.

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He also pointed out the city has about 400 miles of bike paths.

"We are the leading Metro in the country for electric vehicle usage and penetration in our community. And that's, again, a community effort. And what we really want to do is make sure that everyone knows that they don't need to be able to afford a Tesla to be part of this green revolution," Mayor Liccardo said.

The Mayor said San Jose's City Council will be discussing climate change at its meeting Tuesday, what the city has done and what it can work on.