Happy Recycle Day 2010

​We bet a five-cent aluminum can refund that you didn't know it was national Recycling Day. Sure, this green-friendly holiday isn't as popular as other made-up ones like Valentine's Day or Halloween, and Google isn't commemorating the day with a doodle, but "recycles" is trending on Twitter.

Keep America Beautiful is a non-profit organization committed to educating folks about litter prevention, community beautification, and waste reduction. It celebrated the first Recycle Day in 1997. Since then, the socially conscious celebration of reusable materials and carbon-reducing practices has steadily grown to become Earth Day's baby sister, sort of. 

"While we celebrate the power of recycling on this special day," says KAP CEO Matthew M. McKenna, "it's something to we should all make a conscious effort to do every day of the year."

For this year's holiday, more than 2,000 recycling-related events are taking place across the country, including some in the greater Miami/South Florida area. 

Somerset Academy Charter School is encouraging students and their families to sign pledge cards promising to recycle, while KONE, an international elevator and escalator company, is hoping employees will take the America Recycles Day pledge at their Miramar offices. 

Tonight between four and eight, at The Shops of Midtown, Recycable Planet is also celebrating Recycle Day by demonstrating their first green machines, or "reverse vending machines."

"(Green Machine) is basically a machine collects plastic bottles and aluminum can," said Carlos Cuevas, Recyclable Planet's founder and CEO. "(The machine) then prints out a ticket with a unique code that gives users the opportunity to win prizes."

Cuevas is also hoping to install green machines at several locations throughout the country. "We want to put them in schools, colleges, supermarkets, golf courses."

Golf courses? You don't think environmentally friendly when you picture a golf course, but maybe a green machine will help.