The blog for the club.

Keep Anderson County Beautiful may organize a tree planting day in the fall, so keep your eyes open for the possibility. YOPW/ ORHS environmental club may be involved somehow.

The signs are here: informational signs about the road work are placed near the guard shack and machinery to rip out massive amounts of life giving trees

On Saturday, June 20, 2009, we were able to collect circa 60 signatures on the tree petition.  It is a very happy thing, but we still need hundreds of more signatures from tree-loving Oak Ridgers.  Please host the petition at your party, conference, or event of any kind. It would be very helpful.

In addition, the Tree Petition website at treepetition.googlepages.com now redirects to treepetition.oakridge.yopw.org. This is because of Google’s plan to shut down Googlepages. But don’t panic because the googlepages.com address still works just as well as it did before.

Best of wishes,
CameraDude

The Oak Ridge Earth Day 2009 (its a really big festival) is going to be held at A. K. Bissell Park (in Oak Ridge, TN, of course) with the theme of “Planting the seeds of change…” More information can be aquired at orearthday.org (and volunteers are needed!!!!!!!!! PLEASE VOLUNTEER!!!!) Here is a press release talking about it:

Oak Ridge Earth Day 2009

Moms for Earth Day – Celebrate at Bissell Park April 25, 2009

It started last year as an email initiated by one of the festival planners to a few fellow Mothers asking for small pledges to help sponsor the first-ever community-wide Earth Day Celebration in Oak Ridge since the original event in 1970. It was a gentle request asking mothers to give $10, banding together in a small way to make a big difference for this new community endeavor. And those mothers responded by donating, and by forwarding the email to their contacts, who responded by donating and forwarding.  The success of the Moms for Earth Day campaign was so significant in 2008 that the Moms were among the largest financial sponsors of this grassroots festival – donating over $700.  It is hoped that the 2009 effort will be equally as successful, and the community is encouraged to support the campaign.

This year, for the April 25 celebration at Bissell Park, with a decidedly gloomier economy, corporate sponsorships are limited, and small individual donations such as the Moms make are all the more imperative for funding the event.  Relatively speaking, the Earth Day festival is a financial bargain.  Many of the services used to put on the festival are generously donated by in-kind sponsors – advertising in local papers, tents for certain exhibits, City infrastructure support, recycling pickup – not to mention thousands of volunteer man-hours.  Not only that, it is completely free for attendees and for exhibitors.  It is a community festival, and the community truly supports the endeavor by attending, volunteering, exhibiting, and vending.  However, not all goods and services can be donated or bartered, and financial support is critical as well.

To date the 2009 Moms for Earth Day campaign has earned $500 in donations – one half of its fundraising goal – to support Earth Day 2009, which will again be held at Bissell Park in Oak Ridge on April 25 from 11 am – 6pm.  This year’s festival offers longer hours and expanded entertainment, and the costs are higher than in 2008.

The festival is designed to “Plant the Seeds of Change,” by helping attendees to identify and act on ways to reduce their impact on the planet – making small gradual changes in their lives to help the environment.  The festival remains vigorously family-friendly, with many interactive opportunities, animal encounters and educational games, and fun for all ages.  Exhibitors, volunteers, and corporate sponsors are still needed.  Event details, forms and applications are available at the festival website at www.orearthday.org .  Moms for Earth Day now also includes a Facebook page, permitting development of a dialog regarding many issues of sustainability in our community.  Consequently, the association of concerned parents is not merely about fundraising for a festival, but now also provides an avenue for discussing thoughts and wishes for the long-term health of the community in which we are raising our children.

The festival is again produced by East Tennessee Earth Alliance (ETEA) and WDVX radio. Contributions can be sent to “East Tennessee Earth Alliance” with “Moms for Earth Day” in the memo section to PO Box 4326, Oak Ridge TN 37831-4326.

Earth Fest 2009 Logo

In Knoxville (TN), there is EarthFest 2009 (more information at Knox-EarthFest.org). As of recently, the festival is being held on Saturday, April 18, 2009 from 10am – 6pm. The venue is Pellissippi State TCC in Knoxville, TN. Admission is free and all are invited to partake in the excitement! Here is a quote of information from their website:

“EarthFest 2009 is aiming to be a Zero-Waste Event again! Exhibitors and food vendors will be required to control the types of materials they sell or distribute.EarthFest organizers, sponsors and volunteers will provide recycling and composting opportunities for everything distributed at the event.

“The City of Knoxville’s Solid Waste Office and Earth Fare will hold a ‘Spring Fever’ environmental awareness event at Earth Fare’s Turkey Creek location from 1-5 pm, on Saturday March 28. A variety of fun and educational activities are designed to show people how to reduce, reuse, recycle and revitalize this spring. In addition Earth Fare will donate 5 percent of total store sales on March 28 to the Tennessee Valley Partnership, the city’s partner forEarthFest, Knoxville’s Earth Day Celebration.

“The event will also feature demonstrations of eco-friendly products like chemical-free cleaners and CFL light bulbs, easy-to-apply tips about composting and rain barrel use, the benefits of buying local and much more. Representatives from theKnoxville Recycling Coalition will be on hand conducting a compost bin sale. Alcoa along with staff from the Knoxville Recycling Coalition will be giving away free 22 gallon recycling bins while supply lasts.”

We encourage your participation as always and wish these organizations and many others the best of luck in their environmental endeavors!

The Recycle Bank program went into affect earlier this year (2009) in Oak Ridge. It is a program that has been used in some northern states and has recently been expanding into other parts of the country. The City Council voted to implement the program as a complement to the expanded recycling list, already in place. The program gives free recycling containers to citizens to use for curbside pickup. Residents can place in their containers all of the following:

• Metals:
  • Aluminum cans
  • Steel cans
  • Tin cans
  • Aerosol cans
• Plastics:
  • Plastics #1-7
  • Juice containers
  • Plastic tubs
  • Plastic jars
  • Milk containers
  • Detergent containers
  • Plastic trays
  • Plastic bags (not listed on bin, but announced on website)
• Glass:
  • Glass bottles
  • Glass jars
• Paper:
  • Mixed paper
  • Junk Mail
  • Catalogs
  • Magazines
  • Brown paper bags
  • Newspaper and Books
  • Flat cardboard boxes
  • Cereal boxes
• Not accepted:
  • Styrofoam (Earth911.com , certain events)
  • Food waste (Earth911.com , compost)
  • Yard waste (Earth911.com , compost)
  • Electronics (Earth911.com , certain annual public events)
  • Hazardous waste (Earth911.com , certain annual public events)
  • Ceramics (Earth911.com)
  • Dishes (Earth911.com)
  • Light bulbs (Earth911.com)
  • Motor oil containers (Earth911.com)
  • Window glass (Earth911.com)
  • Mirrors (Earth911.com)

For other items, go to Earth911.com and use their recycle search to find places that take them.