BELCHERTOWN — Lucky drivers on the Mass Pike may look out their windshield to see an industrial-sized recycling container with brightly-colored murals of people gardening in upcycled tire planters, critters playing on the Jabish Brook or even the beloved buildings of Belchertown rather than the typical blue, green and brown neutrals.

But what these drivers may not know is that local residents themselves rolled up their sleeves, grabbed some paint and paper, and brought these murals to life.

As part of the Belchertown Transfer Station Container Murals on Sustainability, community members came out Monday to 135 Hamilton St. to apply the underpaint for artist Melissa Stratton Pandina’s mural. Designed as an enormous paint-by-numbers, people of all ages grabbed paint from Pandina at a large table with numbered paint cans, and then began hunting for the color’s number on the large white-washed container.

“What’s most important is that people feel that this is gonna be their painting,” Pandina said. “They’re gonna feel like they own it, and that’s gonna make them enjoy the artwork a lot more than if I had just sat down and did it myself.”

One container over, artist and illustrator Caoin Springer O’Durgy paints animals canoeing down the Jabish Brook and gardening along the banks. Each of the little characters on the container was designed by a Belchertown child during a paper doll workshop at the Clapp Memorial Library back in January.

“I’m a teacher during the day, so I was so ready to teach the kids, but they just took off,” O’Durgy said. “Their parents were helping and collaborating, too.”

In partnership with the Creative Economy Committee, Department of Public Works and Clapp Memorial Library, the Belchertown Transfer Station Mural project aims to embrace the transfer station as a town space promoting sustainability through community art. The municipal departments surveyed nearly 100 residents to gauge their opinions on important town landmarks and town locations embodying sustainability. Creative Economy Director Maude Haak-Frendscho said people overwhelmingly discussed the transfer station as a representative of both.

“One of the first things that Linda (Leduc, public works director) talked about was that sustainability, as it relates to the transfer station, is about how people are in it together,” she said. “And here we are, painting together.”

Using seed money from New England Foundation for the Arts’ Make it Public for Municipalities program, three different artists were hired to paint three transfer station containers. O’Durgy, Pandina and husband-and-wife duo Joshua and Brittany Smith also pitched their own community outreach ideas as part of the application.

Community, in fact, was integrated into every step of the process. The survey answers from residents also informed the artist’s mural designs: O’Durgy chose to depict recreation in Jabish Brook due to its importance as a Belchertown landmark, the Smiths depicted various historical buildings around town, and Pandina incorporated elements of upcycling in the garden via tire planter and gallon jug watering cans as a show of the community’s values around sustainability.

“It’s just an opportunity to use our enjoyment of art to contribute something positive to the community,” resident Holly Field said.

Scaling up a paint-by-numbers

It took Pandina five hours to draw the mural on the transfer station container using a projected version of the design as a guide. She spent an additional two hours numbering all the sections of the mural, aside from the faces and hands. Since residents only paint the first layer, Pandina will go over any mistakes while finishing the mural to create a clear image.

People of all ages, from 9 months to 99 years, have joined Pandina’s past community murals, and Belchertown’s is no exception. Residents of all ages joined in the painting without fear of making mistakes.

“Seeing the number of people who come here to be part of this project gives me hope,” Field said. “When you’re thinking about something as big as sustainability, environmental issues, it really does take a lot of people coming together, and a lot of people thinking about something as a group.”

Maggie Chien saw the whitewashed transfer station containers when she was visiting a few weeks ago, and kept her eye out for when the painting began. She brought her dad and a handful of friends to join her. Elena, along with her father, Jared, and brother Sean Bradshaw, live down the street from the transfer station, and wanted to get out in the spring air for a paint day with her family.

“Obviously, we want to help support our community and keep everything as sustainable as possible, so we’re happy to help out in any way,” Jared Bradshaw said, “whether it’s recycling a can to painting a trash can so that it’s a little more appealing.”