Dispatch from Green Up Day
Volunteers were everywhere; crawling out of nature preserves, wandering by the roadside, in the parks, the streets, and on campus, Vermonters from age six to seventy six were sweeping up debris, scrubbing walls, and trying to get kite-eating trees to give up their hostages. Whether they were gathering trash, hauling their finds to a drop-off, or scouting out where to head next, I rarely saw anyone standing still for long. Luckily, I was able to find a group who were taking a break and were willing to talk.
Clockwise, from left: Nyssa Knarvik, Dave Torres, Blair Wolverton, Megan Rysinger, Dave Honeman
They'd been collecting for about two hours when I talked to them. “We all work at the Gap and we wanted to do something about Earth Day, but Green Up Day seemed more pertinent,” said Knarvik. While some of them had taken part in the clean up before, this was the first time they had participated as a group. In those two hours, they hadn't found anything more exotic than a circuit board, but Torres had picked up an impressive 863 cigarette butts- “I've been counting,” he said. However, not everyone was treating their efforts with respect. They told me that a friend of theirs who'd been picking up butts had been yelled at by a passing driver who was smoking: “hey, you wanna pick up this one two?” Apparently, the driver decided to “make him walk for it” by tossing it out the window a little ways up the road.
Fortunately, most of the people I talked to that day had had positive experiences. After the main clean up in the morning, a small party with music and food was held for volunteers in City Hall Park. Also in the park was the Chittenden Solid Waste District's 2nd annual sustainability fair, where I was able to interview Marge Keough, waste reduction outreach coordinator and organizer of the sustainability fair.
“What we have are about a dozen organizations that have different ideas on how people can green up their lifestyles every day,” explained Keough. Organizations were there to promote various methods of reducing waste as well as your carbon footprint, which seemed to be directed towards the goal of more permanent replacements for disposables: free reusable shopping totes, carrying water bottles, and developing permaculture, to name a few. “We're trying to raise it to the next level on how to incorporate [green] habits into their daily lives and provide them the tools to do that,” said Keough. As a part of that, she was promoting composting. Despite Burlington's urban setting, she told me that composting was still an option for city dwellers with drop off composting at the Intervale, available for free at various CSWD drop offs.
As for climate change, Keough is a believer. “The scientists have been measuring the ice in the northern poles, and the carbon in the atmosphere, and we see the effects of our weather right here in Vermont, where the winters are kind of getting a little bit different- starting later, weather patterns are changing... My gardens, I don't get frost the way I used to get frost […] It's amazing how much longer my growing season is […] so I've seen the evidence.”
*I later found out that the storm troopers were out and about to promote free comic book day. I saw quite a few people who'd taken them up on the offer lining benches, reading.
For more information on Green Up Day, visit www.greenupvermont.org/index.php
To get information on CSWD and composting, visit www.cswd.net or call 802-872-8111
