Notes from Town Square: Is the city going green?

Officially Earth Day is April 22, and 2015 marks the 45th anniversary of the very first Earth Day festival. Earth Day Network’s year-round mission is to broaden, diversify and activate the environmental movement worldwide, through a combination of education, public policy, and consumer campaigns. Recently, Green River celebrated its third annual Earth Day Fair at the Pavilion and 43 volunteers took time out to help make it a big success. The weather was beautiful Saturday and almost 200 people came down to Expedition Island and joined us for a great day. There were educational booths and games made from recycled material, a scavenger hunt, and food; visitors learned about the Sustainable Reading program, how to make natural cleaning products and all the ways that “Even one” matters.

Even one recycled aluminum saves enough energy to run a computer for three hours. Even one quart of motor oil can contaminate 2 million gallons of fresh water. Recycle your motor oil at the Green River Landfill don’t dump in the gutter or down the drain, it will be recycled over and over - it never wears out

Even one book can open your mind to a new world. The sustainable reading program, a collaboration between Sweetwater County School District No. 2 and the Sweetwater County Library gives young people a chance to earn coupons redeemable at the Earth Day Fair. Participants read books for an eight-week period and each book earns them a coupon.

Each coupon offers kids the opportunity to create a seed strip with vegetable and flower seeds. The seeds are placed on strip of newsprint with a flour and water mixture, this seed strip can be placed in the garden. The newsprint, flour and water hold the food and moisture, helping the seeds to grow is neat little rows.

This year a new element was added to the program – tree seedlings. Kids that read at least eight books, or one per week, were given a tree seedling coupon to be redeemed at the Arbor Day celebration on May 9. The program was a big hit at both the school district and library. This year 560 seed coupons were redeemed and 58 coupons for tree seedlings were awarded at the Earth Day Fair. WOW! Could Green River be going green?

A question that comes up quite often in discussions these days and at length during the Earth Day Fair is how can Green River’s recycling program become better. Although there are many different opinions, the community is ultimately the source of the outcome.

The GReen Team is a group of volunteers whose work is instrumental in organizing events such as the Earth Day Fair and America Recycles Day. But the GReen Team also promotes recycling and educates the community about recovering resources from the waste stream. Resources mean cardboard, paper, aluminum, grass, leaves and branches. Some of those resources can be recycled and others composted, they don’t need to end up in the landfill. Removing even a fourth of the material from every resident’s trash each week could bring 36,000 tons of martial to the recycling program in just one year! Why not try removing even one item from your waste stream at home? That can be as easy as putting your cardboard or aluminum cans in a separate container and taking it to the recycling center instead of leaving it in your garbage where it is destined for the landfill.

Now that the city has received grant funding from the state, a new transfer station will be breaking ground soon, and we’ll need your help to make the recycling and recovery program as successful as it possible can be.

Is Green River Going green? We think so; let’s all work to make Green River a green community. Join the GReen Team today! Even one Individual’s impact may not seem that important, but together we can make a big difference.

For more information about your community’s recycling program or to join the Green Team contact the Public Works Department at 872-0528.

 

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