LAKE VIEW TERRACE >> Each working day for nearly 30 years, Brian Sibert has climbed aboard his 20,000-pound Los Angeles trash truck and driven roughly 70 miles to scoop up yard waste.

Two rounds a day across the west San Fernando Valley fill two truckloads with 17 tons of tree branches, rose bush clippings and bygone fruit. At the city’s first Earth Day trash festival on Saturday, it was marked as a feat of joy.

“It’s great to celebrate Earth Day — and trash,” said Sibert, formally known as a refuse collection truck operator for the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, standing Saturday in front of a Peterbilt trash truck fueled by compressed natural gas. “And how we’ve reduced the amount going into our landfills.

“We’re there to keep the city and its streets clean.”

He was just one Los Angeles solid waste ambassador at the city’s First L.A. Sanitation Earth Day L.A. Festival — and possibly the nation’s first Earth Day party for all-things waste.

The Earth Day festival, on the nation’s 46th Earth Day, drew hundreds of residents to Hansen Dam Recreation Center in Lake View Terrace to hop aboard polished trash trucks, sewer rooters and mobile cranes.

Parents and their kids also waded among rows of booths to speak with L.A. Sanitation experts on solid waste, stormwater and reclaimed water.

The free grilled hot dogs, free garden mulch, plants and trees, Folklorico dancing, pony rides and bulk-trash-pickup mascots Freddie the Fridge and more were just an added bonus.

“We have to do more to conserve,” declared Councilman Felipe Fuentes, whose district contains Hansen Dam park, which includes Discovery Cube.

“We can all be stewards of the environment,” added Councilman Bob Blumenfield, whose wife Kafi heads the Discovery Cube science center.

L.A.’s conservation efforts have put it No. 1 in drought-stricken California for conserving water, city officials said, with a 19 percent reduction this year. It also has more solar power renewables than any city in the nation, as well as more electric car charging stations.

But its 3,000 sanitation workers were celebrated as the immediate heroes, whose 700 drivers whisk some 10 million tons of solid waste each year off the curbs of America’s second largest city. Of that, 76.4 percent is recycled — a number expected to hit 90 percent by 2025.

Residential pickup includes 750,000 homes and apartments across 500 square miles. Even horses receive bins for manure pickup. Yard waste produces some 72,000 tons of free compost and mulch.

“We’re very proud,” said L.A. Sanitation Director Enrique C. Zaldivar. “We’re here to protect the environment. And we’re here to protect public health.”

Samantha Ruiz, who tends a garden in El Cariso Park, picked up some free strawberry starters.

“I’m excited,” said Ruiz, 17, of Pacoima. “Strawberries. I’ll try to make ’em the best in L.A.”

Two-year-old Nikolas Aslanian, meanwhile, kept climbing behind the wheel of Sibert’s trash truck. With his toy fleet of trash trucks, he could be a future garbage man.

“He loves the garbage trucks,” said his mom, Rosario Aslanian, of Burbank. “I think (this festival) is awesome — awesome for the kids, awesome for all of us. We take everything that’s in our city for granted.”