Photo Friday | Putting in the Work

Part of my personal goals this year is a goal to DO more in the community. Being a treehugger means getting a little dirty sometimes, but even when it's 50 degrees and windy outside, it feels good to do something that makes an impact.

Bayou Vermilion District and No Waste Louisiana organized a paddle trip for last Saturday morning to pick plastic bags out of trees along the river. Another group, which included myself, went through the Nature Trail across from Vermilionville to pick up litter.

Although I'm not sure the total number of bags and pounds of trash collected, it was certainly enough to open your eyes to the serious litter problem we have.

The Bayou Vermilion District operations crew goes out on the river in Lafayette Parish every day they can, depending on weather and river level, and they work continuously to keep the river clear of litter and natural debris like fallen trees. Last January, I had the pleasure of riding along to get a firsthand view of what the operations crew does - check out that feature here!

Unfortunately, there's still a litter problem. Especially compounded from the flooding last August, our river is seeing a lot of trash from both within the city, and floating down from areas north of us. It's a problem larger than what the operations crew can truly handle.

And it's a problem that we can all tackle.

Where does it come from?

• Accidental litter that ends up on the road (flying out of vehicles or garbage trucks)
• Intentional litter thrown out of vehicles or by pedestrians
• Intentional litter tossed into the water 
• Litter floating downstream
• Flood debris

The litter you see on sidewalks or on the side of the road WILL end up in our river. When it rains, that litter is washed from the road into the storm drain, which then washes into our coulees and into Bayou Vermilion.

If the litter isn't collected while in the river, it'll float downstream all the way into the Gulf of Mexico.

The focus on cleaning up plastic bags is an important one, since plastic doesn't biodegrade, but becomes harmful to wildlife that try to eat it. I noticed very early on in our cleanup that these plastic bags were super brittle, and some were buried in mud from recent rains. Although not as easy to spot in some places, they were still doing their harm.

What can you do? Simply, focus on not littering. Dispose of all of your trash properly. If you see windblown litter, pick it up and throw it away. Don't let it get into our rivers.

 

And furthermore, take a look at how much single-use you use on a daily basis, and see how you can eliminate some of it. The more we can each reduce, the less litter we'll have to begin with.

Photo courtesy: Lee Celano, The Daily Advertiser

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Photo Friday | Household Chemical Day

For all you residents of the city of Lafayette and unincorporated areas of the parish, mark your calendars for next Saturday, December 10. Lafayette Consolidated Government is hosting its biannual Household Chemical Day from 8 a.m. until noon at Cajun Field. 

This is your chance to properly dispose of your household chemicals, and some electronics, at the event. All of the items accepted at the event are not safe to throw in your curbside trash or recycling bin, because the contents can contaminate landfills and threaten your health.

In addition to collecting traditional chemicals like paint, poison, chemical cleaners and mercury, CGI is sponsoring an electronic waste disposal option. Residents can bring old computers, printers and other digital electronics to be refurbished and recycled. The collected electronic equipment will be refurbished by Capital Area Corporate Recycling Council to provide technology to low-income families and nonprofits.

Residents can also turn in unwanted latex paint, which will be reblended and repackaged for use by Lafayette Habitat for Humanity. In partnership with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, the paint reblending project not only provides a needed product to a worthy cause, it also significantly reduces waste that would otherwise be sent to the landfill. 

At this past spring's Household Chemical Day:

• 235 residents brought in more than 10,137 pounds of electronic waste for recycling.
• 540 gallons of usable latex paint were salvaged, which saved LCG $8,000 on disposal costs, while also preserving the landfill.

If you live within the city of Lafayette or uincorporated areas of the parish, please take advantage of this event to practice responsible chemical disposal. 

Attendees should enter the Cajun Field parking lot at Gate 2 off of Bertrand Drive, across from Rouse’s.

Click on the banner to go straight to the Facebook event.

Courtesy: Lafayette Consolidated Government

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Photo Friday | Have a Seat

Earlier this week, Keep Lafayette Beautiful conducted a litter index survey throughout the city and unincorporated areas of the parish. The survey is a stark reminder of which areas have perpetual litter, like the spot pictured below.

In more remote areas of the parish, wooded areas become illegal dumping grounds. This spot in North Lafayette is so picturesque, and has the Vermilion River in the immediate background. But even so, the area is littered with beer bottles, fast food packaging, panes of glass, shelving and even a recliner.

Scenes like this are unfortunately not unique to Lafayette, but it's unacceptable that people still actively pollute remote areas. There's no way that recliner fell out of a truck and landed 20 feet off the road on an embankment. Even if furniture isn't picked up by the curbside garbage crews, there are responsible ways of disposing of it. Bulky waste removal can be scheduled; or the item could be donated to a nonprofit, or even sold at a garage sale.

If you can drive your litter somewhere to dump it, you can take the time to dispose of it properly.

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Glass Recycling Problems | Potholes in the Sustainability Road

Last year, the Lafayette Consolidated Government began looking into new recycling service providers, as the current contract was coming up for expiration this year. The RFP had intentions of upgrading current services for Lafayette city and unincorporated parish residents, including the option of apartment and business recycling.

However, the city council voted this week to approve a proposed no-bid recycling contract from the same provider. Apartment and business recycling service (under the contract) is off the table, and glass will no longer be accepted in the curbside recycling bins.

Whaaaaaa? Not cool at all. My first thoughts were, there's no way I'm bringing myself to throw all this glass in the trash. I preach for people to use glass over plastic, but this change basically promotes using plastic because at least (some of) it can be recycled.

So, I wrote to my city councilman, and to Mark Pope, our city environmental quality manager (whom I know through Keep Lafayette Beautiful), and let them know my concerns about this regression in service. Although the contract price remains the same for consumers (another big factor in this contract approval), the amount of goods being picked up is lessened.

One of the reasons glass is no longer accepted is the lack of value to recyclers combined with the cost of transporting a heavier material. But, if they are no longer transporting glass, then the same monthly cost actually has a different value to residents, because the company's operating costs will shift.

When I wrote to Mark, I explained:

I don't mean to discredit what you do in the public works department. Without your many years of passionate work, Lafayette would not even be where we are today. I know there are reasons that went into choosing this option, but I disagree with these terms of the renegotiated contract. 
I would just like to ask the city to reconsider the terms of the recycling contract. I am also contacting my district representative to ask him the same thing.
I am so proud to recycle as much as I do, and I cannot in good faith throw away recyclable glass material. I reuse as much as I can, but that can only go so far.

I understand there is a glass recycling facility in Baton Rouge. If I had the ability to drive my glass contents to Baton Rouge, I would, but unfortunately, that is not feasible.

If there can be no glass recycling under the new contract, is there another option Lafayette can offer to the city's residents? Is there another local company who can accept the materials outside of the contract? What options DO we have besides a landfill?

He responded quickly and shed some light on the issue, and explained how this is really a higher-level issue with manufacturers and costs.

I understand your concerns, and the issue with glass has existed for years. In fact, the glass that has been collected with Lafayette’s curbside recycling program has been going to a landfill for years. The market for glass has all but disappeared throughout the United States. Middle-man recycling companies – such as the Recycling Foundation (Progressive Waste), Waste Management, Inc. and Republic Services – simply cannot find a recycling processor that will accept glass.

The reason that glass has dropped off the viable list recyclable commodities has to do with costs. Manufacturers are not willing to pay substantially more for recycled glass when they can purchase the predominate raw material, “silica” (sand) for so much cheaper than recycled glass. Hence, the supply/demand formula sounds the death knell for recycled glass. There is very limited demand for recycled glass; therefore, recycling processors do not supply the product which they cannot market. This means that municipalities that collect glass with their recycling programs have no outlet to be able to dispose of collected glass.

Glass has been a problem since the early days of recycling: it’s heavy and more expensive to transport, and its value has been amongst the lowest for all consumer recyclables. Additionally, with the advent of single-stream recycling, more problems were created: glass breaks and shards get caught up in newspaper and other paper products. Entire loads of paper have been rendered worthless (i.e., headed to the landfill) because of contamination caused by shards of glass.

Rest assured that if our contractor can locate a recycling processor that will accept glass, then glass will be added back to the list of acceptable recyclables for the Lafayette program. As stated in the recycling contract, LCG and the contractor can agree to add or delete recyclable items to the list of recyclables accepted.

I thanked Mark for his insightful answer and sat back to think a little.

It's frustrating that there is no market for recycled glass when its benefits are great, even according to Waste Management. Glass can be recycled more than once without losing integrity.

It's even more frustrating to know that glass has been trashed for years instead of being recycled.

My biggest ideal situation would be manufacturers making recycled glass containers the standard, instead of new glass containers. It would be having all salsa jars, spice jars, soda bottles, beer bottles and wine bottles automatically made of recycled glass. (Some are now, but clearly not enough.)

But until I can sway the glass manufacturing industry to see the light (ha!), I'll bring it back down to what this blog is about: things that each of us can do to be greener.

REDUCE AND REUSE.

The best thing you can do is reduce your waste. Don't buy extras, or too much of something in glass. If you don't have it in the first place, you don't have to worry about recycling it or throwing it away. Buy in bulk if you can and use your own containers.

The next best thing, especially for glass food containers, is to reuse. I wrote a blog post last year on why reduce and reuse come before recycle in the slogan, and this is a great example why.

• Reuse small jars as candle holders
• Reuse mason jars as drink cups or salad containers
• Save food jars to store leftovers in (saving money on buying food storage containers)
• Use jars to store rice and pasta in the pantry, or sugar next to your coffeemaker
• Hell, make a lamp out of a mason jar
• Buy items made of recycled or reused glass, to support those companies. (Another shoutout to Syrup Row and her wine bottle candles!)

What ways do you reuse glass at home?

Do you want to speak up? Get information on our city council!

Find out who your city council person is.

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Walking the Walk

After the Project Front Yard press conference and awards ceremony and the Keep Louisiana Beautiful annual conference, I've been feeling inspired to DO more. I love writing and researching for the blog, but I'm feeling compelled to be more active out and about. It's not just about talking the sustainable talk, but about walking the walk.

So...here we go!

What I've Made a Habit (/Obsession)

Picking up more litter I come across. 

This is probably my biggest focus in the fight against trash everywhere. I was shopping one afternoon, and in two stores, I came across drinks left on the shelf. I mean, seriously y'all. If you bring a drink with you, don't leave it on the shelf! 

 

On my afternoon walks, I pass a pond, and one day, I found styrofoam cups floating near the bank. Even in a skirt, I went over, pulled the cups out, and threw them away. It was nasty. 

 

It's just ridiculous how much trash is everywhere all the time. I've found pedicure spacers in the parking lot of a clothing store. Why!?! 

And I take it upon myself to pick up what I can, because it's not just a job for inmates or store employees. It shouldn't be their job to pick up and throw away what someone is too lazy to throw away themselves. I look at it as a way of advocating for people to take some responsibility, if they see a random person like me picking up trash and throwing it away...taking an extra 10 seconds out of her day.

Using cloth bags at any store, not just grocery stores. On that recent shopping trip, I made multiple stops, and had a cloth bag for each one. It was awesome to not come home with a wad of plastic bags! I've started to keep some of the packable shopping bags in my purse, so no matter where I am, or if I'm not in my own car, I've got something to use.

Bringing my own and recycling as much as possible. 

Last weekend at Festival Acadiens, I only used a trashcan for my food trays (couldn't avoid those, dangit.) My drink cups were all recycled, and I brought water in my insulated Kanteen. I kept my fork to reuse, and brought a cloth napkin.

And I never forget my trusty Downtown Alive reusable cup! (However, some of the beertenders still fill a disposable plastic cup and then pour it into my cup, so that's defeating the entire purpose.)

Avoiding styrofoam.

Especially after watching Bag It! and listening to Marcus Eriksen speak at the Keep Louisiana Beautiful conference, I made a goal to renew my vow to use styrofoam as little as possible. I refuse to use a styrofoam cup, and will pass on items if they are packaged with foam.

Maximizing my fuel efficiency.

I've adjusted to driving a hybrid, and I'm working on getting my average miles per gallon as high as I can. I had been averaging about 46-47 MPG on a tank, but more recently I've been pushing it to 48-50, and the highest average I hit (for a day) was 53 MPG!

Getting involved!

I'm pretty sure we look like a stock photo for having fun while recycling, but cleanups actually do make a fun time. I pitched in recently with ReCover Acadiana and Project Front Yard on their Embrace-a-Space program and helped pick up litter along a Lafayette street.

Photo courtesy Project Front Yard

 

Coming up next week, Keep Lafayette Beautiful is participating in United Way's The Big Event, spearheading a team on a park beautification project. With thousands of student volunteers coming together on one day, there will be a huge impact on Lafayette, from trash cleanup to beautification to service.

What I Want to Improve

Being more vocal.
I've got a few ideas in the works for talking to businesses and companies about ways they can easily be more sustainable. I just need to finish them and make some connections!

Beyond that, I just want to keep advocating for reducing, reusing and recycling, on my own and in conjunction with other awesome organizations.

 
Getting more produce bags.
As much as I use cloth bags at the grocery store, I always forget to bring my reusable produce bags. And when I do, I only bring the three I have, which never covers all the produce I pick up. So I ordered more this week!
 
Bringing my own to-go container to restaurants. I have still not gotten in the habit of doing this. Although we don't dine out often, and I don't usually have leftovers, I still want to at least have one in case. Or at least have one for my fiance to use.

I also want to get in the habit of bringing a more sustainable container to places that typically use disposable plates. I've got the drink container habit down, but not food.

Transitioning to more organic and natural beauty products and clothes. This will eventually be some feature posts, when I get to it. I have started researching and getting new chemical-free products, and it's almost been a success. (Two words: natural deodorant. One face: :( )


What sustainability habit do you want to improve on?

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Keeping Louisiana Beautiful | Inspiration

That moment when you feel completely and utterly inspired to DO something, and you listen to a speech that connects two of your recent blog post topics, which makes you feel like

Keep Louisiana Beautiful held their annual conference this week in Lafayette, and I was able to attend the second morning thanks to the705. The first speaker of the morning was Marcus Eriksen, research director and cofounder of 5Gyres. What does the organization focus on? Plastic pollution in our oceans.

Last week, I wrote about the documentary Bag It!, and mentioned the segment on the remote Midway Atoll and the staggering numbers of dead animals found with plastic and trash in their stomachs. Marcus has traveled to the Midway Atoll and studied the contents of what these animals swallowed. He does extensive work on the effect of microbeads polluting our water and fish, a topic I wrote about earlier this week.

Neither of which I wrote knowing that I would be getting to hear Marcus speak in person a few days later! It was incredibly inspiring to listen to an expert on plastic pollution, and his presentation galvanizes me in a way to put my own effort into doing something. Beyond simply writing about the issues, I want to do more to influence others to reduce their dependence on plastics. Leading by example as I always try to do, it's extremely important to change the culture of disposable and single-use. (Part of the reason I'm a huge supporter of Klean Kanteen's #BringYourOwn campaign.)

A few statistics and facts dropped today:

• We are seeing over 300 million metric tons of new plastic being produced.
• Plastic microparticles can penetrate membranes in mussels and oysters, which means we can be eating them.
• 663 marine species have been impacted by debris.
• Trash from the Mississippi River enters the Gulf of Mexico and follows the current (gyre) to the North Atlantic.
• There's 269,000 tons of trash in our oceans, equaling 5.25 TRILLION particles.
• That's the equivalent of wrapping straws, end-to-end, around the planet 425 times.

One of my favorite statements Marcus made was when discussed how finding whole pieces of plastic in the ocean is very rare, thanks to photo-degradation, and you can't tell which company to blame, 

"except all of us."

Boom.

The next big topic of discussion was litter enforcement in the state of Louisiana. Captain James Gomillion with the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries talked about how he enforces litter laws in Rapides and Avoyelles parishes (what up CENLA!)

Just so everyone has a friendly reminder, there IS a Louisiana litter hotline where you can report littering activity, and offenders will get cited and fined.

Add that number to ya phone.

And did you know LDWF has a tips app where you can report violations, whether it's littering or other kinds? I didn't! Download that.

Tom Ethans, of Take Pride Winnipeg, shared many of the organization's successful projects in cleanliness, beautification and education. I might have spent part of the time laughing inside about Tim Horton's jokes from How I Met Your Mother, but I promise I paid attention to the presentation. The city has been extremely successful over the past 20 years in cultivating a sense of pride among its residents and students.

As Tom made us recite, it's about:

"reduce, reuse, recycle, respect."

Can we turn the 3 Rs into 4 now? Respect for our home is the motivator that fuels us wanting to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Another of my favorite moments from the morning was one of the KLB directors talking about the need to go waste-free at the next conference. It was ironically hilarious to me that a conference full of civic-minded treehuggers had a collection of soft drink cans, water bottles and plastic plates.

As I sat next to Gretchen with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Office of Sustainability and Lisa with Lafayette Consolidated Government recycling, I laughed at how we all brought our own coffee mugs and water bottles. Next year, we will totally make sure there's no single-use plastic around!

Many thanks to Keep Louisiana Beautiful for putting on a great conference, even if I didn't attend both days, and to the705 for allowing me to represent!

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clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere!

(Edit, March 19)
DATE CHANGE! Keep Lafayette Beautiful is postponing the Evangeline Thruway cleanup due to the threat of thunderstorms this weekend! We will meet up next Saturday, March 28, instead; same time, same place!

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Looking for a way to flex your volunteering muscle? Well then, mark your calendars! Save the date! Hit me up!

Keep Lafayette Beautiful is getting ready for its first project of the year, a cleanup along Evangeline Thruway from Tissington St. to Cameron St. The cleanup will focus on clearing off the overgrown sidewalks so they are functional and presentable and cutting back brush. Wield a weed-eater! Be an expert on edging! Help make the Thruway's sidewalks look decent!

All supplies will be provided. But if you've got a pair of work gloves, you're more than welcome to bring them!

The cleanup is going down on Saturday, March 28 at 7:30 a.m. Yes, you can get up that early. It's just for a few hours. Bring your coffee in a reusable mug. You'll get some exercise, a lot of steps for your Fitbit, possibly a new Facebook profile photo, and a happy heart from volunteering. Then you can go back to bed (but I'd suggest taking a shower first).

I'm honored to be a Keep Lafayette Beautiful board member, so if you're interested in participating, let me know by emailing or Facebook messaging me so we can get a head count in advance. Let's see if we can get a huge group of people who care about keeping Lafayette beautiful for both residents and visitors.

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