Marcal Small Steps

Wonder Woman Goes Green!

tcastagna — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:21:35 +0000

An environmental hero is someone who puts the good of many before the good of one, who doesn’t think twice about going the extra mile to make even a small difference, and someone who inspires you to do better yourself. Kara Anderson is that environmental hero.

While it would be so easy for this homeschooling, work-at-home mom to give in to convenience, she instead puts forth amazing effort every day to live a healthy, happy life for a healthy, happy environment. Whether it’s digging carrots at the organic CSA, divvying up food co-op orders, composting or simply choosing organic tomatoes, she is setting an example for her children, family and friends. When her family wanted to make Christmas ornaments they went hunting for second-hand wool sweaters for felting. When their backyard tree fell in a storm she used pieces to create a play area for her children. Instead of choosing paper or plastic she uses her own natural fiber bags, many sewn herself. Last year Kara started writing a blog for a company that strives to promote organic and environmentally friendly living. She hopes that through sharing her family’s own stories of living more organically, others will choose to make their own changes to preserve our environment.

Kara doesn’t do these things because they’re fashionable, she does them because she genuinely cares about our planet. She wants her footprint to be a fingerprint and she’s succeeding. I, for one, am joining her…it’s time we all did!

My wife, my hero

tcastagna — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:08:20 +0000

My wife, Marissa, is my environmental hero. She has taken steps over the past few years in effort to help our home cut down on waste, reuse and recycle what we can, and use environmentally friendly products. Marissa has begun to impact those around her through her actions, and they now are taking strides toward the same goal.

It began with stainless steel canisters which she refills everyday instead of buying bottled water. Marissa has also insisted on utilizing reusable bags, and ensures we keep them in every vehicle so they can never be missed. Her actions progressed toward increasing what we recycle; finding a place that even takes cereal boxes (which is rare in our area). She has been very excited about the Small Steps line, which she buys religiously.

Marissa buys many things in bulk to cut down on packaging, and eliminated our need for paper towels. She was able to do this by cutting old t-shirts into squares, which we keep in a crock on our counter and wash with our regular laundry. Her most recent endeavor is making her own natural laundry detergent. This has cut down on waste through plastic, while allowing us to cut down on manufactured items.

Plans for the upcoming year include buying into a Community Supported Agriculture farm which provides fresh vegetables for 20 weeks which are locally and organically grown. Although these actions have grown slowly over the years, Marissa now makes a significant impact in our home and community.

Green Walker

tcastagna — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 15:51:25 +0000

My wife, Sue, is the greenest person I know; she lives green and teaches others green living. I could write my essay on many of the things she has done, but the most unique and biggest of her small steps is the “green walks” she takes several times a week. Within a radius of 2.5 miles of our house, Sue will walk with a large trash bag (sometimes up to 3 bags) and pick up trash on her walks through the park and neighborhoods that radius encompasses. This is not picking up just your occasional beer can or cigarette butt, or plastic container, either. She is well known among our Parks and Rec staff who have given her a large supply of bags for her walks and are called on to pick them up at spots she will put them for collection. A few years ago Sue began logging her trash walks and each of those years she has picked up well over a ton (yes, 2,000 pounds!) of trash. She has taken family and friends and even our foreign exchange student on these green walks. You not only get good exercise (up to a 5 mile walk) but also leave the world – or at least your neighborhood – a cleaner place!

An Old Dog Learns New Tricks and Passes Them On

tcastagna — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:26:04 +0000

Kathy Chalfant, also known as “Sunny”, is a former elementary school teacher, now in her upper 70 living in a retirement community called Valle Verde in Santa Barbara, California. She is far from retired, however. She now has more time to promote recycling and the use of earth-friendly materials. She convinced the management of dining services at Valle Verde to stop using styrofoam cups at the lounge coffee stop and start using biodegradable cups. She persisted in getting the management to provide aluminum foil for taking home entree meats, fowl or fish, and biodegradable boxes for other takeaway foods.
Valle Verde participates in a city-run waste foods recycling program. Dining room scraps as well as individual home food scraps are collected, recycled and composted. Kathy was instrumental in bringing a very enthusiastic employee of the city program to talk to our residents about all types of recycling, and won over many skeptics to the food scraps program.
Kathy leads a group called the “KnitWits”, residents who use scraps of yarn, fabric, string, etc. to make wearable things for the Unity Shop, a local non-profit organization helping the poor. Nothing goes to waste.
In her private life she uses both sides of paper before recycling, cuts up greeting cards to reuse pretty scenes, takes her own bags to the grocery store. Nothing is wasted. She drives a Prius when she cannot walk.

Students Go Green!

tcastagna — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:22:19 +0000

Jessica has singlehandedly changed the climate of our elementary school. She is a fifth grade teacher who sponsors and supports the recycling program at the school. She manages the student group “The Green Gang”, who, until recently, collect the paper recycling from each teachers classroom once a week. Recently she has attended new workshops about a new program that is available in our county. She made the necessary calls and set up a new single stream recycling program. A new “recycle only” dumpster was installed and every teacher was provided with 2 or more bins for their classroom. Recycle trash cans were placed in many common locations throughout the school. Such as the copy room, teacher lounge, teacher workroom and family lunch area. Part of her duties included educating students about the benefits of this type of recycling. She has made videos featuring her students explaining and role playing procedures necessary to implement this new school-wide program and shown them closed circuit. Under her direction posters were made and displayed around the school. Parent volunteers were recruited to assist during the first week of implementation. They assisted students as they practiced throwing away and recycling items from their lunches. The first week was a tremendous success. The recycling dumpster was so full that the lid wouldn’t close! I am proud to nominate her and recognize her efforts to reduce trash from landfills. She is making a lasting impact on young minds and teaching students the importance of recycling to our planets’ future.

Teaching a school to care!

tcastagna — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:21:15 +0000

When I first began working at Metro School, a public school for children with severe cognitive disabilities, I met Greg. Greg was a founding member of Metro’s recycling program, and though other staff members in the group have come and gone, he is still working with the kids to teach them about caring for the planet through reusing and recycling. He shows the students on the recycling crew how to collect and sort materials and praises them for a job well done. The kids are really proud that they’re helping out and are able to do something independently. When students choose vocational training sites at the beginning of each semester, Recycling is always filled quickly and many students request it year after year. Students even remind their teachers to recycle by grabbing recyclables out of the trash and putting them in bins! Greg even works to educate his fellow staff members and pushes them to reduce, reuse and recycle whenever they can. If someone at school has a question about recycling, the answer is always, “Ask Greg!” Every week, Metro’s large rollout bins and dumpsters are filled to the brim with cans, paper and plastic. Greg’s tireless avocation has helped so many students with severe disabilities to learn to care for themselves and the environment.

My Son the Student Hero

tcastagna — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:20:42 +0000

I nominate my son as an everyday environmental hero. In high school, he started taking small steps towards environmental sustainability. He began by turning off lights in rooms we were not using and encouraged the family to do the same. He convinced us to begin using recyclable bags when shopping and to change light bulbs to compact fluorescent. As he got older and wanted to get more active, he became president of the environmental club at his high school. He wanted to increase effectiveness and reach in helping the environment so he spent a week with the Sierra Club learning how to organize and champion both simple and complex programs with environmental focus. After training he organized a rally through our town in support of 350 ppm CO2 content in the atmosphere and was on a panel at our library talking about what the average person could do to make a positive environmental impact. The Alliance for Climate Education recognized his efforts by awarding him a college scholarship. Now at college, he continues to do his part. He is a political science major and environmental studies minor hoping to combine these two passions into a career influencing environmental policy. Daniel is my hero because he follows his passion for keeping our plant healthy, first with small individual and family steps then with broader impact on our community. As he matures, we expect him to take steps that will influence the country and eventually the world at large.

From Urban Gardens to Butterflies in Space

tcastagna — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:44:46 +0000

I am nominating Master Naturalist Nancy Carlson as a Green Hero. Nancy previously worked for River’s Edge Nature Center, Riverbend Nature Center, the Eco-Justice Center, and currently works for UW-Parkside’s environmental education centers. These jobs do not pay well but Nancy loves teaching; she’s not in this for the money.

Nancy is also a prolific volunteer. She is one of the founding members of Racine’s Urban Garden Network which creates community gardens and teaches children and adults about the importance of fresh local food. She does an amazing amount of work for the Monarch Watch program including tagging Monarchs, teaching school children about the program, and participating in NASA’s “Monarchs in Space” program where she helped fourth graders raise Monarchs with astronauts on the ISS. She is an active member of the local and state Sierra Club; she serves on multiple committees and her efforts have resulted in the local group becoming the premier water monitoring club in Wisconsin. She also conducts Bat Monitoring and is an inner-city Girl Scout troop leader.

Nancy lives her environmental beliefs as well. She has her own organic vegetable garden, composts, recycles, collects rainwater, bikes whenever possible instead of driving, and teaches the neighborhood children why these things are important. Her house is a favorite stop for kids.

Nancy passionately works every day to help connect children to nature and the environment and she has been very successful at it – she is a true Green Hero.

Greening the Disability Community: An Example on Wheels

tcastagna — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:43:36 +0000

I am the green advocate in a motorized wheelchair. I am a vegan (22 years) and a vegetarian (32 years). I recycle, save kitchen waste for a compost heap, and eat organic. I do not use chemicals. I have used Marcal recycled toilet paper since the 2009 Green Fest, and I try to shop local as much as I can. I teach persons who are disabled how to reduce their carbon footprint, specifically the group IMPRUVE (Independent Movement of Paratransit Riders for Unity, Vehicles, Equality). I have lectured at Chicago’s Green Fest on how the disability community can go green and create green jobs. I have presented at the Green Corps in my ward and organized a clean energy rally for my local 1Sky group. All of this without pay as a public service for a deserving population.

Since 1995, I have ensured that only organic vegetarian or vegan food is served at any events sponsored by my self-help non-profit group- BNICEH (be nicer), the Black Network In Children’s Emotional Health. BNICEH sponsors IMPRUVE, too. We are working to have solar-powered wheelchairs, appliances, and vehicles. I formed the Green Think Tank for the Disability Community. Our biggest long-term projects are the Soular Car and Green Paratransit projects to create our own paratransit. This will lift some persons who are disabled out of poverty, others will lift their despair as they are able to be active in their communities again.

Pioneer in Green and Recycling

tcastagna — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 15:59:42 +0000

I’m nominating my dad, Evan Quarton. He’s 80 years old and has been taking more small steps to benefit the environment on a daily basis for over 40 years, longer than anyone I know. We moved to NJ around 1970 and I don’t think we had our garbage collected. My dad would sort glass, cans, plastic, newspapers and boxes. He had a garden and grew our vegetables. Any perishable waste would go into his compost pile created with layers of weeds and grass clippings and the perishables. He would use that as fertilizer for the garden after it decomposed.
Not only were his actions good for the environment, he saved money. He would go to the dump and recycle center every weekend.
He maintained this way of life until he moved into an assisted living facility 6 years ago for my mom’s health. She passed away 11/7/2011. He will remain living there because he has opportunity to be extremely active throughout the community. He managed to get a non-paid job helping in the restaurant and couldn’t help checking out the kitchen operations. Now, his new goal is to get the kitchen staff to do a better job at recycling. He’ll be able to do it by example and suggestion.
I think he’d be honored to be recognized for his lifelong efforts in taking small steps to better our environment. FYI, his profession was as a safety chemical engineer helping companies safely dispose of hazardous waste. It’s in his blood!!