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Do you see important connections with the role you play in our community and our future on this planet? Would you like others in our community to know more about your efforts? Ryan Tracy, Beer On The Wall: We absolutely feel that as part of our local community as well as the beer community that each business decision we make should also have some degree of consideration towards environmental concerns. Brewers themselves are making tremendous strides with renewable energy-fueled breweries, and selling their spent grain to farms as feed for animals, so on the retail side of things we wanted to do our part as well. Our biggest waste is cardboard boxes/trays from which we receive our beer as well as aluminum and glass bottles that are consumed on site. When we first opened it was very important for us to engage our waste management company and get a recycling program set up for our store. We estimate about 2/3rds of our waste is cardboard, aluminum, and glass and based on watching our recycling bin fill up about twice as fast as our landfill bin. In addition, we also have made some small changes within our operation to make ourselves more eco-friendly as well. To reduce plastic/paper bag waste, we give members of our club a reusable bottle bag, and give them discounts for coming back with it. Our coffee service uses compostable straws, cups, and lids, and both coffee and beer consumed on-site is served in a re-usable glass. For theupcoming season we will be adding a new re-usable cups that our patrons can buy, come in and fill up to-go or use to drink from on-site that will also come with a discount just like the bottle bag. Finally, our point-of-sale system is equipped with capability to send receipts via e-mail or text thus reducing our paper use as well.
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Happy America Recycles Day! Our Next Change Maker is Alex Babich, an 11 year old at Eugene Field Elementary School. Along with the help and support of his parents, Alex is taking on a community project that is near and dear to his heart, as it honors the loss of his younger sister Kate in June of 2016. Alex is helping to conserve the planet one plastic bag at a time and provide Benches For Kate throughout Park Ridge in her memory. Alex and his family officially launched Benches For Kate in May 2017. Here is a special Change Maker interview with Alex conducted by Amy Bartucci, Founder of Go Green Park Ridge.
Did you already have an idea that plastic bags could be recycled into new products before Mr Bennett (aka Girl Scout King) came through with the idea for a collection for a bench for Kate? Well, sort of! I had seen a sample bench at Jewel-Osco one time. But, yes, Mr. Bennett thought of the purple ribbon collection from the trees in Park Ridge. (Jennifer, Alex’s mom added: Scott & his Girl Scout troop collected all the purple ribbons to recycle and also collected the rest of the necessary 500 pounds of plastic for the first bench. It is near the Girl Scout labyrinth at the Wildwood Nature Center.) Did you think collecting plastic bags would require so much (or so little) work? I really didn’t know if it would be hard or easy. I never cared if it was going to be something difficult. It was hard at first, until we got into our current system. We had to work out timing and scheduling our pickups and how and when it would be best to take the plastic bags to Jewel after we weighed them. We have a daily pickup at Centennial Fitness Center and we pick up as needed at Maine Park and Centennial Activity Center. We drop off plastic about two times a month, with help from a friend Mrs Gonzalo, at Jewel on Busse. People at Jewel have been very nice! What kinds of things have you ever made out of trash? Well, recycling ideas in our family usually came from Kate. She would happily make things out of old boxes all the time. She was the real recycler. I am glad to be doing this now though. I can make a difference by collecting 500 lbs of plastic for each bench. We have one bench at the nature center, one at St Andrews Lutheran, and one coming up! Did you ever hear of the old adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure?” Yes. I never thought of it that way, but I do now! Do you practice or remember a certain thought, phrase, or visual memory when you are doing something so special in Kate’s name in Park Ridge? Yes, I envision a cleaner ocean! I want to save marine animals. Tell us about the weighing task you take on. Is it easy? Hard? Educational? Fun? Weighing is really the easy part. We leave the bags of plastic in our garage until we weigh each collection before taking them to Jewel for Trex – the company that makes the benches. We use a spring scale. My mom keeps a spreadsheet that we total up our weights and we contact Trex so they know how much plastic we have collected towards the next bench in Park Ridge. What are some things that could make your job easier? Plastic bottles - keep them out of the bins! What can others do to help you further? We use our own larger kitchen garbage bags for the loose bags in the collection bins. It would be helpful if people tied up their bags into a larger bag because I hang the bags on our scale. This isn’t necessary though. Did you ever think you’d be interviewed for something as usual as a “plastic bag collection”? No! What’s your favorite part of the Benches For Kate effort? Pickups make you feel like you’re doing something important - especially on Sundays - we’re doing something together. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a collection bin? A loofah from the shower!  GGPR: Do you see an important connection with the role you have played to make your business more environmentally friendly and our future on this planet? Would you like others in our community to know more about your efforts? (Holly Recently Shared Her Press Release With Us) 63,180 lbs of hair clippings, 42,122 lbs of hair colour, 109,512 lbs of foil and colour tubes, and 206, 392lbs of wastepaper, salon bottles, and other paper and plastic items – that’s the amount of waste being tossed out by hair salons across North America EVERY SINGLE DAY; that’s a whopping total of 421,206 lbs! As a newly Green Circle Certified Salon, we are proud to announce that Ash & Willow Eco Salon is now part of a comprehensive recycling and sustainability program that sets out to significantly reduce our industry’s environmental impact on the planet. From the sourcing of ingredients to the disposal of packaging and products, the salon and beauty industry has long posed many challenges to the environment. With this in mind, we wanted to join forces with Green Circle to take a stand for our planet and work together to reduce our ecological footprint and make our industry more sustainable. Through our partnership with Green Circle Salons, we will be redirecting what was once considered garbage out of our water streams and landfills to be repurposed into innovative green solutions. Starting September 19, all hair clippings, extensions, any excess colour and developer, papers and plastics, foils, aerosol cans and colour tubes from Ash & Willow Eco Salon will be collected by GCS - effectively cutting down our salon’s total waste, literally overnight, by 85-95%! As our customers continue to take increasing interest in the ethical and environmental impacts of their purchasing power, we wanted to give our customers a genuinely more responsible, and greener choice when it comes to looking and feeling beautiful. As a member of the GCS network, Ash & Willow empowers our customers with the ability to vote with their dollars for positive change. By supporting our salon, our customers have the peace of mind knowing that they are taking meaningful steps to keeping our communities and environment healthy. Ash & Willow Eco Salon and Beauty Apothecary
604 Devon Park Ridge, IL 773-619- 2128  Go Green Park Ridge asked Vanessa about her role in stepping up to be our "Point Person" to get commercial composting up and running in Park Ridge! Please email vanessahill75@gmail.com for more information on how you can get bi-weekly pickup for compostables at YOUR residence!
GGPR: Do you see an important connection with the role you play in spreading awareness of composting and our future on this planet? Would you like others in our community to know more about your efforts? Vanessa: As a city kid, I never really had a relationship with growing food or thinking about how to use food waste to best impact the planet. It wasn't until moving to Park Ridge three years ago that we started with a few tomato plants and began to understand how valuable compost can be to the growing process. We began to compost ourselves and our food gardens have expanded to take over almost all of the border areas of our yard. Seeing how much of our daily waste was able to be composted instead of being thrown away was eye opening. As I heard about other communities piloting commercial composting programs and the additional waste items that can be composted commercially, I was excited. Thankfully, Go Green Park Ridge was able provide some experience and know-how to help us begin our own pilot. With so many issues facing our planet today, it is sometimes difficult to feel you can impact anything on your own. It was a wonderful experience to see my small efforts translate into something tangible and I feel lucky to live in such a great community.  Do you see an important connection with the role you played in the yard sign collection and our future on this planet? Would you like others in our community to know more about your efforts? The sign recycling signified a small way individuals could help make a difference. Before this project, I hadn't really considered the environmental impact of all these yard signs. It made me think about the ways we can all participate in helping the planet. I feel like recycling is best utilized when it is accessible and simple. Seeing how so many folks came together to make the sign recycling possible, it made me think that it is possible to continue making a difference in many small ways to help our environment. I would like others to know about this program because I hope awareness can continue to build for future election cycles. It would be great if folks just "knew" to recycle their yard signs after each election. Also, the biggest takeaway for me was how teamwork made the whole recycling program more manageable and transferable to other environmental ideas in our community.   Do you see An important connection with the role you play at Maine East and our future on this planet? Would you like others in our community to know more about your efforts?Shelby Riha is working hard to not only help her students understand the complex interplay between human and ecological systems, but also evaluate claims and evidence about the economic, environmental, and human health impacts of our actions. She said “I am lucky to have many opportunities on campus to acquaint students with the natural world. We are currently collaborating with the special education department and students to maintain a vegetable garden that supplies our salsa-making competition in the Fall. We learn about the storm water management and biodiversity benefits of native prairie plants in our butterfly garden outside the science wing and are working on getting a grant to put up an educational sign." Shelby and her class work in the oak savanna to measure carbon sequestration of the trees, make observations about species interactions, and learn about invasive species. They also have seasonal work days to remove European buckthorn, maintain a path, and complete an outdoor classroom space by the pond in the oak savanna.
The Maine East students work in groups to do service-learning projects each year so they are always looking for ways to collaborate with community partners on local ecological or environmental issues. Feel free to contact Shelby with ideas! They are also looking to start a Friends of the Maine East Nature Spaces digital newsletter. Send an email to be added to their list: sriha@maine207.org Sue McGovern: A Monarch Butterfly Farmer! Do you see important connection with the role you play in our community and our future on this planet? Would you like others in our community to know more about your efforts? “As a lover of the outdoors, I started raising monarch butterflies in our Park Ridge backyard in 1998 to show my young son what a joy it is to interact with nature. We planted milkweed and eagerly awaited the arrival of the females to deposit eggs upon the plants. We brought eggs inside to protect them from predators and watched caterpillars emerge a few days later. We fed the caterpillars milkweed leaves, cared for them until they turned into beautiful green and gold chrysalises, and released the magnificent monarchs when they emerged. We have shared our method of raising monarchs with the community and have seen people turn into monarch advocates after learning more about these graceful creatures and their dependence on milkweed.” Check Out Sue’s Blog: www.backyardbutterflies.com Check Out Sue’s Book available through Sunbury Press, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon Raising Monarchs: Caring for One of God’s Graceful Creatures Have you ever wondered how to raise monarch butterflies? Author and butterfly farmer Sue Fox McGovern takes you through all of the steps from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. All of this can be done in your own backyard.  Meet Lauren Maloney, Denise Reeder, and Jenny Duerkop of the Lincoln Seed Library Do you see important connections with the role you play in our community and our future on this planet? Would you like others in our community to know more about your efforts? “Three years ago, with the decline of heirloom seeds being grown and in danger of being lost in our area, the Lincoln Seed Library was created! The Lincoln Seed Library shares our love of seeds with students, families and the community. We offer heirloom seeds (saved consistently for at least 50 years) for flowers, veggies and herbs; we "check them out" in the spring and hope our seed library members have a great growing season, then in the fall our members save seeds from their best plants and we "check them in." There is no charge, we just ask for a name and email address to register our members. Not many people save seeds anymore and we hope that the LSL will expose more people to the joy of Purple Carrots, Mini Chocolate Peppers, and Thomas Jefferson Blue Buttons. We are proud that our LSL sustainability footprint has grown to include worm bins for vermicomposting and we have community volunteers plant our heirloom seeds in early spring. With the help of our growing lights we are now able to offer seedlings as well as seeds in May and June during our member checkouts. Denise Reeder, Library Information Specialist, Jenny Duerkop, Seed Library Coordinator, and Lauren Maloney, volunteer, are all excited to share the Lincoln Seed Library with local students and everyone in the community!” For more information about the Lincoln Seed Library, please contact: dreeder@d64.org   Erick Huck, Pak Ridge Park District MLA, PLA, ASLA Facilities and Parks Planner ehuck@prparks.org Do you see important connection with the role you play in the Park District and our future on this planet? Would you like others in our community to know more about your efforts? “Yes! My efforts with the Park Ridge Park District to establish native natural areas, restore a vibrant urban forest, and utilize native plant materials are part of a global effort to design a built environment that is inclusive of natural systems. The positive impacts of small design moves like utilizing native plants in our parks can:
At a global-scale, our myriad local impacts can promote positive change. By showing that sustainable buildings and landscapes are also aesthetically beautiful, I hope others in our community and throughout the Greater Chicagoland Area are inspired. Together, we can set an example and design a better environment for future generations.”  Do you see an important connection with the role you play in our community and our future on this planet? Would you like others in our community to know more about your efforts? “Yes! Preserving the environment requires starting small. Every contribution we make towards using less and recycling more helps our planet. Currently we are working on getting teachers and students to turn off computers at the end of the day -- this would save an estimated $15,000 a year -- and creating a green roof for Maine South. Stevenson High School has already started one and we hope to convince our school to go the same route. So far we have already made a recycling video and added three basket-net styled recycling bins to the cafeteria. Saving our planet cannot be done by just a few people. It requires an ongoing, global effort, but just a single community dedicating themselves a little bit each day will go farther than any of us can imagine. All it takes is being conscientious: reducing, reusing, recycling and picking up just one piece of garbage a day. Anyone can join the effort: high school students can join Environmental Club and adults can attend monthly Go Green Park Ridge meetings. We cannot delay helping our planet anymore; climate change is already upon us. The time is now!”  |
Park Ridge:Take a look at what your neighbors are doing for Park Ridge sustainability! Archives
November 2022
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