The project titled Renton Trails, and featured in an article in RentonPatch, is taking on fundraising to new trails, having volunteers use GPS devices to map new trails, taking on cleaning up open areas, habitat restoration and more. While the town will have the final say on where the new trails go, Case sees plenty of opportunity for individuals to demonstrate leadership and make a difference.

“People can make their own volunteer positions,” he noted.  “Our focus is fundraising and community activism so we can get this accomplished without spending all the taxpayers’ money.”

Renton Trails is having its debut event, a cleanup of Honey Creek Trails, this Saturday, May 12 at 9am. To find our more or get involved, visit the Renton Trails site.

In addition to taking part in Landmark’s SELP, Duval was inspired by Seth Bernard, who has held water festivals across Michigan. Duval began by creating a partnership with the Kalamazoo River Watershed Council, a non-profit dedicated to working with local groups to protecting the Kalamazoo River. Proceeds from the festival went to the Watershed Council.

With the one million gallon oil spill in the Kalamazoo River having recently taken place, the festival was a call to action for the community. Speakers and information booths supported attendees in how they could make a difference.

Additionally, entertainment was provided by a wide variety of local musicians – festival coordinator Michael Beauchamp performed with his band, Red Tail Ring, and band Red Sea Pedestrians performed a new song inspired by the Enbridge Oil Spill. Duval performed with his own band, Who Hit John? Many other bands from the thriving Michigan folk music scene also performed at the festival.

The reason for the day is environmental education, creation and inspiration, and features a variety of workshops, crafts and musical activities.

The day is being held Saturday, June 5th, starting at 9:30 in the morning with a compostable waffle breakfast, for which a $5 donation is suggested. At 10 there will be a ribbon cutting ceremony for the opening of the new school garden. The garden actually began in the fall with planter boxes provided by the school’s Dad’s Club – student grown vegetables from the planter boxes will be on sale at the Green Day.

According to Opas, the project was designed to “create community, empowerment and education centered around caring for our planet and for each other.”

To find out more, call Opas at 510-879-1220. Here is the Oakland Local story.

Cermak is the owner of 37-year old family company Rowell, Inc., which manages about 30 different home and condo complexes in the Chicago suburbs. Cermak and Rowell are inviting residents – including renters, owners and village officials – to take part in the ‘Pay it Forward’ planting project created in the Landmark program, planting bushes, trees and perennials and causing connections in the community.

Getting people involved and connected to one another is one of the main goals of the project, according to Rowell assistant manager Christine Cott. Hanover Part police officers have taken up on that idea at one of the work sites, taking part in the planting to build better relations with the community. The full story can be read at the site of the Daily Herald.

The green fair created by Bates is titled “Summer Solstice Celebration – Growing Greener Every Day”, and is being held at the Prisco Community Center in Aurora, Illinois. A full-fledged, all day environmental festival is being planned, with music, food, vendors with environmental products, demonstrations, educational workshops, and more. The fair is being modeled off Elgin, IL’s ECCO Green Expo.

To get involved with Aurora Green Lights or to find out more information about it or the Summer Solstice Celebration/environmental fair, call Bates at 630-605-9244 or go to www.auroragreenlights.org.

Residents work to beautify Iblur Garden

Bellandur Iblur Residents Welfare Association, along with several NGOs, residents of nearby areas, citizen groups and schools, participated in a `Harit-Jagat’ project for beautification of Iblur Lake garden on Saturday.

Sunil Kand, a resident of the neighbourhood, said: “Around 50 persons from the neighbouring areas dedicated two hours for the job. We cleaned the entire garden of trash. We pulled out parthenium and watered the entire area. We also employed gardeners for trimming the hedges.” Overall, the residents filled close to 50 gunny bags with tightly packed trash and parthenium.

Three months ago, a few residents of the area conceived a time-bound action for Iblur Lake and garden. A senior citizens association, whose members use the graden daily, readily took up the job for its upkeep. The BIRWA has taken upon itself the job of `promoting, campaigning and initiating citizen actions for civic and community activities’.

This newsletter of the Royal Palm describing the work of Suresh Kumar and Clean Bangalore give a sense of the kind of dedication and hard work it takes to have a Self Expression and Leadership program project flourish in a community.

Our January volunteer meeting was held on Jan.10^th 2009. Thanks to all the members who came for the meeting. The following are the members who attended the meeting: Suresh Kumar, Chidananda, Ramachandra and Chethan.

The meeting began with a brief description of Saahas activities.

Suresh Kumar, who is attending the meeting for the second time, gave us an update of the pilot waste management that he has instituted in his apartment complex: Royal Palms, HAL. Ten families have been inducted into the waste management programme. They segregate their waste as dry and wet. The organic waste is then composted. The dry waste which comprises recyclable material is stored and further sorted in a sorting station set up in the basement. Here is how he did it (extracted from the Royal Palms newsletter). Great job!

Pilot at RP

Beginning 8 Dec 2008, 10 families at RP volunteered to be part of this pilot project of segregating their waste into wet and dry. For easy of managing the pilot, these 10 families were selected from one single wing; A-wing. These flats are 004, 005, M04, 104, 105, 204, 206, 303, 304 and 306.

These houses collect dry waste in the same mode as done earlier with a minor difference. Instead of using the regular black garbage bags or using one of the white plastic bags we get from supermarkets, they use a blue bag provided to them. This colour coding is done to segregate their sorted waste from other unsorted waste from their neighbours. They collect their wet waste in a steel bucket with lid, provided to them. In this bucket, they collect their daily kitchen waste mostly collected as part of the cooking in the morning. They keep the wet and dry waste outside by 10 am. The housekeeping assistants has been trained for this new process. They collect the wet waste buckets and transfer them to the composting units. In RP, these are kept behind the badminton court and resemble large earthen pots.

Once the staff empties the bucket, they wash it and return it back to the respective house. Flat number is marked on the bucket for identification. The RP gardener has been trained to do the required maintenance of adding dry leaves, mixing them, adding germ culture to accelerate the composting process, etc.

The dry waste, collected in blue bags is taken to the ‘Dry Waste Sorting Station’. This is located far side of the basement. Waste is sorted into plastic, paper, cardboard, glass,metal, TetraPak and eWaste. A nearby scrap dealer comes twice a week to pick up this sorted waste and gives us the appropriate commercial value for the scrap. TetraPack and e-Waste is sent to different collection agency.

From here to where…

After doing this pilot for over a month, it is time to roll out to larger set of houses especially in B and C wings.

Chidananda and Ramachandra work together and have offered to help out with revising and updating our website. Chidananda has also offered to have an e-waste collection receptacle in his office building. Thanks and we’ll be looking forward to your help.

Chethan, who has worked/volunteered with us for the last six months, has offered to identify some scrap dealers, especially those in the RT Nagar/Hebbal area. Thank you for your help.

Thanks for all your help. Looking forward to meeting more of you next month. .

Passaic Business Owners Clean Their Block

by Juan Esteban Villegas

Business owners from 1st Street in Passaic decided to grab shovels, brooms, and garbage bags and clean up all the dirt which has been degrading the appearance of the commercial area of the city.

Tired of seeing people throwing out bags and bags of trash, Francisco Javier Del Toro, owner of La Providencia, along with Mieguel Martinez from GROMEX (Mexican Food Distributors), and Jaime Martinez from L.M. Imports, joined forces and managed to get all the business people from their block to work together on this.

But Del Toro and the two Martinez weren’t counting on the City’s Department of Public Works to help them carry out this task.

“We went to city hall to ask for a a permit, but later we were told that they themselves were going to help us out with machinery,” said Del Toro. “All that garbage was affecting the way we were doing business.”

To finish up with their cleaning campaign, last Sunday, October 5th, residents and business owners bought flowers and trees which were later planted in a place that looked nothing like what it used to be.

MLO is a citywide energy conservation and awareness campaign, which will run every December and July. The sole purpose is to encourage behavior change in Madison residents resulting in turning OFF all non-essential lighting/energy products. Imagine how contagious this could be, if we as a community are successful in achieving measurable results.

Today, we have a choice in how we utilize energy. If we act now, we may be able to keep that choice. Everyone and every switch can help. You can. You count.

We are asking you, the community members of Madison to
participate in the MLO awareness campaign by:

1. Being an example! Turn off non-essential lighting/energy products
2. Download, print, and hang a poster
3. Planting a yard sign in December (and July)
4. Be a yard-sign distribution center in your neighborhood
5. Passing the word and emailing this announcement to your friends

The Madison Lights Out project is also holding a mid-December, and has been featured on other websites, such as the Madison Peak Oil Group.

Family fun day out

A free, fun packed, family event is being held in London Fields as part of national Recycle Now Week.

The BeRecreative event on 2 June is a joint effort between the Council’s recycling team and Green Champion network.

Building on the success of last year’s event, BeRecreative 2007 promises to be bigger and better than ever.

Kids can get busy making their own toys from recycled materials at the ‘junk journeys’ stall, play on a bouncy castle and have their face painted in favourite designs.

Recycling mascots will also be on hand to meet budding young environmentalists and keep them entertained.

There’s plenty to do on the day for adults as well, including making or customising a shopping bag, creating amazing meals from leftovers, and taking a look at green technologies. there will also be hot organic food on sale, or alternatively bring your own picnic.

Entertainment will be provided by Hackney children, who have attended music, drama and dance workshops run jointly with the Hackney Empire.

They will be performing their own music and dance routines, developed around environmental themes.

Green Champion, Esther Schillinger said: “It was great being involved in last year’s BeRecreative event and this year there will be even more for everyone to get stuck into. It’s a fantastic way to learn, have fun and make a difference to the environment at the same time.”

Here is a video of the first BeRecreative event from 2006: