The CSWD Newsflash

is as follows:

Green Mountain Compost to begin selling compost this spring!

I don’t know about you, but I could swear the bird songs have been sounding a little different as the days continue to grow brighter. There’s an ever-so-slight departure from the usual “I’m going to throttle that groundhog for giving us six more weeks of winter” tweets of late.

According to the calendar, March 20 marks the Spring Equinox. Whether you take your cues from prognosticating woodchucks, gossiping birds, or the sun’s migration across the sky, Spring will soon be upon us and we’ll be digging around in our gardens before you know it.

One sure sign of Spring will come in a few short weeks when Green Mountain Compost opens its doors and begins selling rich, delicious Complete Compost. We’ll open as soon as the annual Winter/Spring/Winter/Spring weather flip-flop settles down — which means sometime between late March and mid-April.

When we do open, your favorite rich, dark, bulk compost will be available only at Green Mountain Compost (1042 Redmond Road, Williston, Mon-Fri 8-4. In mid-April we add Saturday hours). New this year: Compost will also be available in smaller quantities at the bag-your-own station at the facility.

What else is new? An on-site greenhouse where every batch we make is growth-tested before we sell it to verify that it’ll help your plants reach for the sky and contribute vital structural components to the soil to strike that balance between water-holding capacity and good drainage.

We’re all looking forward to helping your lawn and garden burst into bloom!

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Creative ReUse Showcase moves to Frog Hollow

The excitement builds as the CSWD Creative ReUse Showcase moves to Frog Hollow Gallery in Burlington. In February, over a hundred people came to the Creative ReUse Showcase Open House at Adams Farm Market. From First Friday (March 7) through March 27, you’ll be able to get a gander at works selected to be professionally curated at Frog Hollow. The art has been judged and winners for seven categories chosen — but who will win the People’s Choice Award? Only YOU can tell! Stop by Frog Hollow during the exhibit and cast your vote. The winner will be announced at the final Awards Bash on March 27.

For a taste of what you’ll find at Frog Hollow check out the online gallery of 2014 winners.

Month-long exhibit at Frog Hollow — The show opens during First Friday Art Walk
WHEN: Friday, March 7 through Thursday, March 27
WHERE: Frog Hollow Gallery, 85 Church Street, Burlington
Showcase Awards Bash
WHEN: Thursday, March 27, 6-7 p.m. (awards at 6:30). Enjoy light refreshments, and a chance to meet the artists who crafted these amazing pieces. People’s Choice Award voting closes at 5 p.m.
WHERE: Frog Hollow Gallery, 85 Church Street, Burlington

What’s the Creative ReUse Showcase? It’s an art competition for Chittenden County students in grades 9 through 12. We’re hoping to encourage students and the community in general to reduce waste by reconsidering the use that may still remain in products and packaging we consume and discard. Creative ReUse Showcase art is made from items and materials that have been rescued from discard piles and creatively repurposed.

Got questions? Contact Johnny Powell: jpowell@cswd.net or 872-8100 ext. 211.
Please let our sponsors know how much you appreciate them for helping make this event possible: Frog Hollow, Renewable NRG Systems, Adams Farm Market, Advance Music Center, Bolton Valley Resort, Boutilier’s Art Center, Burlington City Arts, Outdoor Gear Exchange, Battery Street Jeans, Casella, and ReSource!

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Enter the “Name That (Local) Color” contest!

At CSWD’s Environmental Depot, the Local Color Paint elves have been stirring up some new colors to add to their spectrum and they need YOUR help to name them!

Propose a name for any or all of our four new colors. If your proposed name is chosen, you’ll win a $25 gift certificate to the local farmer’s market of your choice, 2 gallons of Local Color Paint, and all the fame and fortune that comes with being a color namer! Here are the new colors:

The contest is open to everyone! Here’s how to propose a name:

1. Get creative! Extra points for names that fit the color and have a Vermonty tie-in. Note: Ten color names are already in use, so tie your thinking cap on a little tighter if you were planning on using one of these words: Creamy White, Autumn Yellow, Maple Cream, Champlain Blue, Moss Green, Mansfield White, Granite Gray, Wheat Brown, Barn Red, and Green Mountain.

2. Visit the Name That (Local) Color web page and submit your ideas.

3. Watch next month’s CSWD Email NewsFlash for the winners!

What the heck is Local Color Paint? It’s fabulous, earth friendly paint that we make from the cream of the crop of leftover paint that gets dropped off through our collection program. We carefully process it and repackage it for purchase. The paint isn’t wasted and you get quality paint at a great price! Read all about it and find out where you can get your hands on some here: Local Color Paint.

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Material of the Month: Paper towels

This is a test: Which bin do paper towels go into when you want to dispose of them:
A) Trash
B) Recycling
C) Compost

As with every recycling, composting, and trash question, there are reasons why something can or can’t be disposed of one way or the other. When you know those reasons, it’s easier to remember the answer if you know the what behind the why:

A) Trash can: Yep! …if: Toss paper towels in the trash if you have used them to clean up pet poop or pee, or other hazardous or non-food-based materials.
B) Recycling bin: Nope! Paper towels, like toilet tissue and facial tissues, are the last step at the end of paper’s recycling lifespan. Those paper fibers may have started life as nice, long, sturdy office paper fibers, but they’ve been recycled so many times that they’re too short and pulpy to recycle again.
C) Compost bucket: Yep! …if: If you’ve used them to dry your hands or wipe up food-based messes, they can go right into your compost bucket. Those used paper towels, whether white, brown, or printed, are a great source of carbon, which is one of the essential ingredients in the composting process. Paper towels are fine for your backyard composting system, and for bringing to any CSWD Drop-Off Center along with your food scraps. We accept food and uncoated, food-soiled paper for composting — free! We’ll even give you a bucket to bring them in. Stop by any Drop-Off Center and ask for details!

If you have any questions about keeping anything out of the landfill, we’re here to help!
Call (802) 872-8111
Email info@cswd.net
Visit www.cswd.net.

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Housing community shares compost bin & garden

Residents at Ruggles House (a Cathedral Square facility) in Burlington have a three-bin backyard compost system for food scraps and yard waste generated at their beautiful home. They use the compost from their own food scraps to build soils in their garden where they grow … more food!

Resident Rick Wackernagel tends the bin.

Residents invited CSWD Community Outreach Coordinator Marge Keough to their home so they could learn ways to further improve their recycling and composting efforts. Ruggles residents are in the process of adding a Drop-Off Composting component to their program, which allows them to keep food scraps not recommended for backyard compost systems — such as meat, bones, and dairy items — out of the landfill. They collect those items and bring them to a CSWD Drop-Off Center, where they are transported to Green Mountain Compost in Williston and made into compost.

“Composting, recycling, and reusing have become part of our neighborhood garden with members contributing coffee grounds, kitchen waste, and shredded leaves,” says resident Rick Wackernagel. “We use the compost on our flower beds and share the surplus with our members. The garden supplies fresh vegetables and herbs to 15 member households in the neighborhood. I get almost all of my vegetables from it in the summer and early fall.”

Visit the CSWD website to find out how your business, school, or community group can complete the food cycle with a compost bin or drop-off composting at a CSWD Drop-Off Center or Green Mountain Compost.

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Students help Colchester High School cut cafeteria trash in half

Students Alison Pilcher, Sophia Simkins, Cassy LaBonte, and the rest of their Green Team cohorts, have helped cut Colchester High School’s cafeteria trash in half. Did it take a seismic upper-level policy shift to make it happen? Nope. How about a huge outlay of moolah? Uh-uh. It took creative thinking, collaboration, Yankee practicality, and the gumption to achieve a worthy goal.

The Green Team realized that a lot of recyclables and compostables were going into the trash in their cafeteria. With the help of teacher Melanie Laquerre, the students met with CSWD School Outreach Coordinator John Powell to mesh their ideas with what other schools have done, worked with engineering students to construct a sort station to enable students to separate recyclables, compostables, and trash in the cafeteria, and worked with administration, custodial, and cafeteria staff to get them all enthused about the project and participating in its success.

To get the entire school on board, the Green Team set up a volunteer schedule to make sure someone who knows what goes where would be standing by the sort station to help students and staff learn to put leftover food in the compost container, and recyclables such as plastic milk bottles in the recycling container. That leaves a LOT less to go to the landfill, and takes Colchester High School a little further along the path to being an ever more sustainable school.

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Try this: Three simple steps to detoxify your home

This whole sustainability thing … how can a busy person possibly keep up with all the info on how everything we do is somehow damaging the planet?! Not all of us can, but that’s no reason to keep from taking it a step at a time, if all you have the bandwidth for is one new, green thing at the moment. If it’s simple enough, it won’t take long for it to become part of your personal encyclopedia of how you do your life. Once that happens, there’s room for the next baby step. And then the next. And before you know it, you’re a giant leap from where you started.

Try this: We’ve all got a cabinet full of industrial-strength home cleaners with words like Warning! Danger! Poison! on the labels. Why do you want to spray and spritz these hazardous products around your house for you and your pets and kids to inhale when there are dozens of safer alternatives? Start there.
1. Check with a reliable source to see what products are available to replace hazardous products with. There are many out there with a gentler impact on your health and your indoor and outdoor surroundings.
2. Keep a list of what you need on your cell phone or add them to your shopping list so the next time you’re racing around doing errands, you’ll have the info you need right at your fingertips.
3. Dispose of the toxic leftovers properly. If you are a Chittenden County business or resident, bring them to CSWD’s Environmental Depot, where we’ll be happy to take them off your hands and make sure that they’re disposed of properly. There is no fee for household material from Chittenden County residents. If you live outside of Chittenden County, contact the solid waste management entity for your town to find out how to get rid of those items. Remember: Hazardous materials may not be disposed of in the trash. BONUS: Make your own nontoxic household cleaners! You’ll find lots of recipes if you cruise the internet, or zero in on some at Eartheasy.com. Or try one of these one-ingredient wonders.

Got enough bandwidth for more information on how to clear away hazardous household products? Find everything you need on our hazardous waste page. Still have questions? Give us a call at 872-8111 or email info@cswd.net. We’re here to help!

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Free movie night in Milton!

For most us, trash is something left over after we have reused, recycled, and composted everything we can. It goes into a container and then it goes … away. In the funny and poignant movie “Trashed,” actor Jeremy Irons takes viewers around the world to see how different cultures generate and dispose of trash. We’ll see what exactly happens to our own trash and begin to grasp our individual impact, why it makes a difference when we live more sustainably, and how opportunities are already there for us to take to make a real difference. Recommended for ages 12 and up.
WHEN: Thursday, March 20, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
WHERE: Milton Municipal Building Community Room, 43 Bombardier Rd., Milton
COST: It’s Free! Free popcorn and cider! Bring your own bowl and cup and help make this a zero waste event. Enter to win raffle prizes and a chance to win a backyard SoilSaver compost bin, too!
INFO: Meghan Grant at 893-1186 or Marge Keough at 802-872-8100 x234. This event is hosted by the Milton Conservation Commission and Chittenden Solid Waste District.

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Free movie night in Williston!

Go ahead. Try going a day without plastic. Plastic is everywhere and infiltrates our lives in surprising and sometimes even frightening ways. In the touching and funny film “Bag It: Is Your Life Too Plastic?” we follow Jeb Berrier, a regular guy making a resolution to end the use of plastic bags in his home. The story evolves into an in-depth investigation into plastic and its affect on our waterways, oceans, and even our own bodies. We see how our crazy-for-plastic world has finally caught up to us — and what we can do about it. Today. Right now.

Free showing of the film “Bag It”
WHEN: Monday, March 31, 7 p.m.
WHERE: Dorothy Alling Memorial Library (21 Library Lane, Williston, off Rt. 2)
WHAT: Free popcorn and cider! Bring your own bowl and cup and help make this a zero waste event. Enter to win raffle prizes and a chance to win a backyard SoilSaver compost bin, too!

Sponsored by the Chittenden Solid Waste District, the Dorothy Alling Memorial Library, and Sustainable Williston. For more information contact Marge Keough at CSWD: 802-872-8100 ext. 234, or Sustainable Williston’s Lynn Blevins: 488-0733.

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Annual composting conference coming in April

Once a year, the Composting Association of Vermont brings together the cream of the crop of the composting world to share ideas, tools, and strategies for building ever-stronger composting communities. The annual Vermont Organics Recycling Summit (VORS) is the place to be if you have anything to do with composting, whether you generate food scraps, collect them from others, or produce compost.

VORS brings together technical experts, compost producers, food waste generators, state agency professionals, community leaders and others to learn and network about the use of food scraps and food processing wastes, manures, horticulture/garden waste, wood chips, sawdust, paper products, and other organic residuals to produce compost, energy and vibrant communities.

WHEN: Thursday, April 3, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
WHERE: Vermont Technical College, Judd Hall
124 Main Street, Randolph Center, Vermont
Map and Directions

Workshops include:
• The Power of Community Composting: An Intensive 2-Part Workshop
• Diverting & Managing Food Scraps from Businesses, Schools, and Institutions
• Aerobic Facilities for Multiple Feedstocks
• Hot Stuff – The latest UVM Compost Research
• Universal Recycling and the Role of Anaerobic Digesters
• Hauling Organics: Options and Challenges
• Food Rescue and Organics Recycling: Bridging the Gap Between Excess Food and Food Insecurity
For more information, visit the VORS website and register today!

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How to be a rot star

Highfields Center for Composting wants you to have a rottin’ time at their next Backyard Composting Webinar. Log in and learn that when you make friends with the rotting process, all the food scraps you toss into your backyard composting bin will end up as the dark, rich compost craved by your lawn and garden plants.

You’ll learn ways to tweak your own composting system to make it fit your needs, whether at home, school, work, or in your community garden.

The next webinars are at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 13 and 27.
Register here and get rottin’!

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Two fun, green St. Pat’s Day ideas

If you’ve got a drop of Irish blood in ye, then there’s probably a pint of something green and refreshing in your future on St. Patrick’s Day.

Earth911.com reminds us that there are many ways of going green, whether you’re Irish or not. Here are two fun ones:

Make all of your meals greener without adding a single drop of food coloring: Challenge yourself to use as many locally sourced ingredients as possible for your meals. By doing so you’ll keep your dollars within the local economy and enjoy fresher food that hasn’t been shipped from thousands of miles away — saving the atmosphere from more pollution. Compost your food scraps in your backyard or free at a CSWD Drop-Off Center and those scraps will be made into compost to feed the next round of local ingredients!

Still want to go for the food coloring? Make it even more fun and dye your food green using natural ingredients. Follow the instructions and you can make a green dye at home using matcha powder, spirulina, powder, parsley juice, wheat grass juice, spinach juice, spinach powder or parsley powder.

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Recycle 3-ring binders at Staples

Three-ring binders are notoriously difficult to recycle — and it seems that everyone has a heap of ’em that they’d like to get rid of, but don’t want to throw away a good, useful item. If you can’t find a reuse store or charity that will take them, or you have some that are too far gone for reuse, bring them on down to Staples and they’ll give you a $2 credit towards a new binder purchased that day, AND they’ll ship your old ones off to be recycled into a variety of products (some restrictions apply).

They’re partnering with TerraCycle, an international upcycling and recycling company that collects difficult-to-recycle packaging and products and repurposes the material into affordable, innovative products.

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CSWD Calendar

Thursday, March 20: Free showing of the movie “Trashed.” See above for details.

Thursday, March 27: Creative ReUse Showcase final Awards Bash, Frog Hollow Gallery, Burlington. See above for details.

Monday, March 31: Free showing of the movie “Bag It.” See above for details

Thursday, April 3: Vermont Organics Recycling Summit. See above for details

 

Courtesy of CSWD