Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 17, 1995 TAG: 9504210019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN MCCUE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
This Earth Day, give something to the next generation - a cleaner, healthier place to live. Give something to your children - an appreciation for the natural world around them. Give something to yourself - a sense of satisfaction knowing that you've helped.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Earth Day. In 1970, Gaylord Nelson, a former U.S. senator from Wisconsin who was instrumental in establishing the Appalachian Trail, banning DDT, mandating fuel efficiency in automobiles and other policies, founded Earth Day as a way to catapult the environment onto the national agenda. It succeeded with a force that few had predicted.
``It worked because of the spontaneous, enthusiastic response at the grassroots,'' Nelson wrote recently. ``Nothing like it had ever happened before.
``The grassroots is the source of power. With it you can do anything - without it, nothing.''
As on every Earth Day, there will be demonstrations on Wall Street, marches on the mall in Washington and sit-ins at nuclear plants as national environmental groups do battle with the politicians and industrialists.
Meanwhile, back in Southwest Virginia, we'll be picking up litter, recycling our household waste, and showing our children the wonders of nature, side by side with friends and strangers, all of us tending to our little patch of this planet.
Here is what's going on. Unless otherwise noted, all events take place Saturday, April 22, and are free to the public.
Bedford County:
nSedalia Center, 11 miles north of Bedford City, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Live music all day, food booths and a wide assortment of exhibitions and hands-on displays including solar energy, recycling, Habitat for Humanity, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Humane Society and Master Gardeners.
Roanoke County:
Explore Park, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Exhibits, live music, an Earth Day poster coloring contest for children, and a self-guided hike of the American chestnut trail. The Roanoke Valley Natural Foods Co-op and other local vendors will sell refreshments. Collection bins for aluminum cans, and for canned and boxed foods for the Southwest Virginia Food Bank. Park at ACRES site on Rutrough Rd and take shuttle to the park. (Visitors to the Blue Ridge settlement must pay admission fee.)
Roanoke:
On Sunday, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Roanoke will host two discussion groups at 9:30 a.m. relevant to Earth Day. One will focus on the seventh principle of Unitarian Universalism and the environment, the other will focus on economics and the environment.
Salem:
Third annual Household Hazardous Waste Collection Day, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Salem Civic Center. Bring in those half-empty paint cans, aerosol spray cans, cleaners, pool chemicals, pesticides, batteries and other hazardous waste for safe and proper disposal by professionals. Please don't mix chemicals or bring unidentified material. Label and tightly seal all containers. Call 857-505 for more information.
Radford:
Radford University at noon on Heth Plaza. Composting demonstrations, live music by local band Egypt, campus recycling, presentations by the university's faculty on tropical deforestation.
``Cleanin' and Greenin''' at Wildwood Parkfrom 8 a.m. to noon, followed by music and refreshments. Call 831-6260.
Montgomery County:
Twelfth annual ``Broomin' & Bloomin''' countywide spring cleanup, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., followed by a picnic, live music and door prizes at Blacksburg Municipal Park on Turner Street (or at the Blacksburg Community Center in case of rain). Call 382-5793.
Last year, 4,000 volunteers collected 339,100 pounds of litter and 1,354 discarded tires and put them in the county landfill, and collected 27,000 pounds of steel appliances that were later recycled. They cleaned up 21 illegal dumps, 170 miles of roadside and six riverbanks.
Grab a shovel, a wheelbarrow and a couple of friends and head over to Nellies Cave Park Arboretum for the second annual Earth Day tree planting, beginning at 9 a.m. The Blacksburg Parks and Recreation Dept. invites all volunteers to lunch afterwards. Representatives from Master Gardeners and the U.S. Forest Service will be on hand for information, and the first 200 folks to show up get free seedlings. Call 961-1133.
Cyberspace:
Today through Saturday, Information Highway cruisers can weigh in on environmental issues during ``Earth Day Forum '95.' Sign on to EcoNet, Prodigy, CompuServe, America Online or eWorld and ``talk'' with celebrities, government officials and eco-experts as they host brief cyberchats.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Carol Browner, naturalist Steve Manning of the Nature Company, and others will be on-line.
Folks without computers can still get in on the debate by calling the ``Jim Bohannon Show'' on WFIR (960 AM) from 11 p.m. until 1 a.m. (The first hour will be repeated from 4-5 a.m.).
The Forum is sponsored by Vanguard Communications in Washington D.C., Apple Computer, Inc., and a dozen national environmental groups.
Eco-tips sent in by readers:
Refuse the envelopes that bank tellers put your money in at drive-thrus. You don't need them and can't re-use them. Save a tree!
This drives me crazy. The temperature outside is 75 degrees and people are driving around with their air conditioner on. Roll down the window!
Don't put chemicals on your lawn that will end up in the water table. Dandelion roots and stems are edible and loaded with vitamins.
These three items were sent anonymously, on a small piece of scrap paper.
At the office, switch to lower-wattage flourescent bulbs and replace magnetic with electronic ballasts. An office with ten light fixtures can save up to $22.20 an hour.
At home, folks can replace a standard 60- or 75-watt incandescent bulb with a 13-watt compact-flourescent one, get the same amount of light and save about $3 an hour, a barrel of oil, 500 pounds of coal and one ton of carbon dioxide emissions over the life of the bulb.
- Dirk Kuyk III, president of Kuyk & Associates, a lighting design company in Roanoke, and from Walt Stokley, local dealer for Duro-Test Lighting Corp.
For free information on how to conduct a home energy audit and start saving on your energy bills, call the Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Clearinghouse at 1-800-363-3732.
Listen to ``Living on Earth,'' a half-hour, national environmental features program on public radio (WVTF, 89.1FM) Mondays at 7 p.m.
- Jim Loesel, unofficial national forest watchdog.
Want a less toxic home? Use baking soda instead of air fresheners, boric acid instead of ant and roach killers, brewers yeast and garlic in pet food instead of flea sprays, vinegar and warm water instead of glass cleaner, cedar chips instead of moth balls, cornstarch and a vacuum instead of carpet freshener, bird and bat houses instead of garden insecticides, pull-power instead of chemcials to get rid of weeds, and, finally, instead of oven cleaner, 2 tablespoons of Castile soap plus 2 teaspoons of Borax and 2 cups of water. (Let stand in oven 20 minutes, then scrub with baking soda and salt.)
- Laidlaw Environmental Services and the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority.
Earth Day should last all year. Learn more about important environmental issues in your area, such as efforts to create greenways and protect the Blue Ridge Parkway; proposals to build highways; high-voltage power lines and other projects; and statewide environmental policy.
Drop by a meeting of the Roanoke River Group of the Sierra Club, the last Tuesday of every month (except December) at 7 p.m. in the Science Museum lecture hall, fifth floor of Center in the Square in downtown Roanoke. This month's topic is nuclear waste disposal and the potential for high-level waste storage in Virginia. Contact Wayne Allen at 489-7209.
Keep your car in tune with the environment. A misfiring spark plug can reduce fuel efficiency up to 30 percent. Underinflated tires also waste fuel because they make the engine work harder. U.S. motorists who drive with underinflated tires and poorly maintained engines waste 70 million gallons of gasoline every 10 days.
Avoid prolonged idling and sudden stops and starts. And make sure your vehicle's air conditioner - one of the main sources of ozone-depleting chemicials - is in top condition.
Lastly, for the do-it-yourself repair folks, don't dump it yourself! Take used motor oil, tires, batteries, anti-freeze and coolant to a service station that accepts and recylces them, or call your local government for information on proper disposal.
- Car Care Council and Automotive Information Council.
You probably know where to recycle this newspaper (after you clip this handy list of eco-tips, of course). But what about all that other paper that's piling up - the junk mail, cereal boxes, catalogues and magazines?
Bag it and drag it to the BFI Drop-off at 24th Street and Loudon in Roanoke, or to Cycle Systems at Broadway off Franklin Road in Roanoke. If you've got more than a ton of the stuff, call either company for current prices and turn your bundle of paper into a bundle of cash.
Also, to staunch the flow of junk mail, write to Mail Preference Services, Direct Market Association at 11 West 42nd Street, P.O. Box 3861, New York, NY, 10163. The firm is supposed to be able to get your name off the mailing lists. You might have to write them periodically.
- Ann Masters, executive director of Clean Valley Council.
by CNB